"Topal the Pilot was enchanted with the islands And the feathered men who lived there. There the Niben stayed for a moon, and the bird Men learned how to speak their own words, And with taloned feet, to write. In joy for their new knowledge, they made Topal Their lord, giving him their islands for the Gift."
thats a fragment from father of the Niben, the only source in TSE with refrence to the feathered beastfolk
dose anyone have any other info or speculation on what may have happend or became of the feathered beastfolk :spotted owl:

It could be an old wives tale passed down by oral tradition. The Altmer will go crazy if you talk to them about bird-people. http://www.imperial-library.info/fsg/prowelerarticle3.shtml

(Why can't I find anything of the Sunbirds of Alinor?)

Hence why the bird-men are so interesting. Another "missing link" between gods and man/mer? Yay! :celebration:


The TIL is a grumpy old bastard and only accepts "Sun Birds"

For the longest time, I thought that the feathered men were some early form of the Ayleids. Something to do with "Umaril the Unfeathered" as a title, and because the feathered men lived in what would become the Imperial City. Actually, I'm still not entirely sure, but it is pretty far-fetched.

Yeah I have a weak memory that we had a similar discussion about the "Feathered People" some time ago where there were some interesting points towards the Ayleids.

From the same book:


We know that this strange, friendly feathered people the Pilot encounters will be lost - in fact, this poem is the only one where mention is made of the bird creatures of Cyrodiil. The literacy that Topal gives them is evidently not enough to save them from their eventual fate, likely at the hands of the "cat demons," who we may assume are ancient Khajiiti.

Basically, the Khajiti probably killed them.

But that's boring and, therefore, wrong.

So...what if they are gods? After all, we don't really know what the Aedra who fled through the stars looked like, so maybe...hm...

Nah, I got nothin'.

Its also written in the book. Can it not be inferred that such a suggestion would have been the writer's intent that it be seen as the truth?

Well, yeah, but it was also the writers' original intent for TES to be a shallow DnD setting in which to make a simplistic game of gladiatorial combat or, later, a contrived RPG plot of "combine the disparate pieces of a mystical artifact to stop the evil vizier." Ideas in this series have evolved over time, particularly at the hands of the various freelance writers who flesh out the universe (particularly Michael Kirkbride) -- thus, if an idea is boring, even if it was the original intention, it has no excuse to be boring and, therefore, is wrong and must be corrected.

Nazi Fan Logic, if I may incur Godwin's law.

There are a two chronological inconsistencies with Topal.





The poem suggests that in the Merethic, Topal sailed the Inner sea of Morrowind and observed Orcs in what is now High Rock. However, we know that the Orsimer weren't there yet at the time. They came much later, around the same time as the Velothi Exodus.



For the origins of the Inner sea we have both Haspaht (Kurt Kulhman) and Vivecs Sermons to suggest that there was no Inner Sea in the Middle Merethic and that it was formed around the same time as the Battle on Red Mountain.

As such, I reckon that the original Poem of Father of the Niben doesn't actually come from the Merethic Era, but from a much later time period. It being a http://www.hbo.com/rome/ or a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels.

The alternative is that Nordic cartographers svck, Vivec was being poetic without reason and the Inner Sea was formed at the impact of a heavenly body and has been there ever since. Though this isn't quite as interesting as an Anumidium induced landscaping spree.

You're free to make up your mind about the origins or inspiration of the feathered folk. Perhaps they are a fiction. Perhaps there were feathered people who's customs were usurped by the High Elves as they moved in. If anything they didn't just wander into the authors mind, it's just that the Poem of Topal only goes so far as proof of their existence.

---

Yes, Theodore. I try, but you don't make it easy.

What if the "Feathered People"? Isn't "Feathered People" as in people with feathers but they maybe was Ayleids with Feather costumes/ritual costumes/War costumes?

But it feels as if I have missed something or that I have gone to fast forward on this thought.

Doesn't work in the context of Topal eg. Aldmer being all holed up on Summerset without a clue where the hell Aldmeris just went.

But couldn't the Ayleids or lets say another Mer or Men maybe be located around that area?

This is very interesting, since I have gotten my hunger for more knowledge back after a long slumber.

Ayleid, Heart Land High Elves remember?

Though what ever else there was for feathered folk, actual bird-people or normal people with feathers, how would you tell the difference? We already can't tell actual cat-people and people that wear lion heads and paint spots on their skin apart from their descriptions, they are both cat-people. Same problem with feathered-folk.

Yes I know the Heart Land High Elves part, but oh wait... the Altmers haven't moved over there at that time?

Indeed you cant from a far, but if they would move in towards their land they could see the difference from a Mer/Man and a Bird-Man/Mer, that was what I meant pretty much.

I was talking about the writing. Not about what Topal would have seen but how he would have told people about what he saw. Like cat-folk, a description of feathered folk can go anywhere.

The next part of the commentary suggests that it is possible these orcs were not Orsimer but beasts like goblins, who would have been considered "cursed" whose name was given to the later mer descended orsimer.

I think it's just Altmeri prejudice seeping through. Demonisation of "lesser races" and all that.

I don't suppose the feathered people could be the Wild Elves? I'm reminded of this in the 2920 series:

Can Ayleids turn into birds? Is this poetic license on the author's part? Or, is it the opposite, and Aldmer mixed with the bird-people to make the bird-morphing Ayleids? Or, is the author mistaken, and the Wild Elves are actually different completely from the Ayleids? Could the Wild Elves be limited shape-changers, not unlike how the Bosmer once has no cohesive shape until they were tied to the bones of Elfoney (please pardon any incorrect spelling or assumptions)?

That explanation has always seemed awfully coincidental.

Yet, it should be easily enforceable though by providing examples of the use of the word Orsimer from before the ordeal with Trinimac. Not impossible as between the supposed setting of Topal and the Velothi exodus Mer seem to have settled Tamriel. They should have also recorded the existence of these 'Orcs'.

Until that happens I remain of the opinion that it is just another element of the historic fabrication like Morrowinds inner see.



Well the story itself suggests there were no Mer on Tamriel before the Aldmer came down from Summerset (disputable). So the Ayleids couldn't have been there. It also seems that Topal bought the proverbial New York which would be the foundation of what would become the Ayleid city of Cyrodiil.

I'd go for cultural/social/physical mixing.

The proverbial New York is right. Until someone with an excellent idea makes them relevant again, they will be the Tamrielic Algonquin, albeit more mysterious and possibly avian.

The Wild Elves are the Ayleids gone feral.

The reason for the inconsistencies is that the origins of Tamriel and everything else in the Aurbis has been retconned at least once. The older version had elves from Aldmeris and humans from Atmora, the more recent version has everybody from Tamriel with Aldmeri and Atmoran origins being demoted to mere myths without basis.

...

I don't like the more recent version. It is boring (and therefore wrong?).

Everyone appears to prefer the Tamrielocentric model.

It would appear that on several counts, which have now been made explicit, the received narrative of Topal's voyage stands at odds with much current scholarly consensus on the populace and racial distribution, as well as geography, of early Tamriel. Let it be advised that we bear in mind that the great expanse of years between our present conversation and the subject of our discussion casts a shroud upon our prize: some caution must be taken in wedding ourselves to this or that hypothesis. Though this should not be taken as an excuse to reject, without the most persuasive of reasons, the historical and ontological conclusions of our most learned.

Having made this concession, I remind those present that it is a scarcely kept secret that the historian and the ontologist are both met with ostensibly interminable confusions in the sources of their studies. Such apparent inconsistencies provide fodder for numerous debates and discussions, as is only appropriate; yet, the standard method of reconciliation, adhered to almost universally by the learned and respected, is to reject the veracity of one set of stories, discounting these as the fables of primitive, superstitious, and unlearned peoples. It is also not uncommon to reinterpret one story so as to render it consistent with the other, and in so doing, to render the first quaint at best, but factually unreliable. In some cases, one or both of these methods will doubtless lead us towards the truth of the matter.

Still I am inclined to question the universal application of such methods, which bring clarity at the expense of old knowledge which is distrusted because outdated, and outdated because old. As such I am occasioned to wonder whether the confusions which yield the myriad incompatabilities in our sources are not a product entirely of fact juxtaposed against unreliable folklore, but of our circumscribed lacuna within history, from which perspective we stare intently into the past, thinking it to be the sole and sufficient antecedent to our present position.