[One of the most remarkable Bretic knightly cycles, the so-called Chants of Thagore recount the life and deeds of the eponymous first king of Daggerfall, King Thagore (crowned 1E 609; opening date of the Annals of Daggerfall). While the cycle has grown over time to encompass various (and oftentimes conflicting) regional tales and legends, what follows are the oldest, ‘core’ chants, concerned with Thagore’s ascent to kingship, in which they follow the archetypal Bretic narrative of a wandering knight on the quest for great power - whether worldly or mystical.]

Sheor the King and the Birth of Thagore

<...> and darker still were later days, the hour of Thagore’s birth. For Sheor the Trickster, the Heartless, the Dead, was ever envious of Magnus’ works, and of the works of his children; and, in his wickedness, he rose against the Direnni, and stole their age away for himself – so that theirs were no longer the uncountable years of all merkind, but days brief as those of Mauloch’s herd. Thus cursed, the Tree of Direnni soon withered, until few were left but those of purest blood, who had hidden from Sheor’s spite behind the Adamantine Walls of Balfiera – and they, as even the most foolish hedgewizard could tell you, are beyond the reach of any god (yes, even Aka). So it came to be that Bretons, children of Direnni children of Magnus, were left in darkness.

The Trickster soon saw how our ancestors writhed in the dirt. “Now I am the King on the Rock,” He laughed and sat upon the highest rock of High Rock, all the better to watch their misery from. “And no man born of man could dethrone me. It would take one thrice-debted, and thrice-cursed by his very mother, to best me; so say I, Sheor son of none.”

And he set about the evil work of making Nords of us all.

Soon, all the lands from the Reach to Betony Lesser were soaked in Sheor’s lies. Man came upon man with fire and sword, but not in the genteel manner of our kind; rather, as Nords do, with too many axes and too little sense. Worse yet, the Bad Man contrived to turn our ancestors from that which he could not steal for himself – so he taught them to revile Magnus and all his et’Ada, and for the longest time Bretons would not look upon the heavens, for fear of falling through the starholes and into Aetherius. How he did all this, nobody knows, but there are many who say he tricked Kynareth to carry his lies on her winds, promising her his heart (for Kynareth did not know that Sheor had already bargained it away, long ago).

This, then, was the hour of Thagore’s birth. Were it not for the Trickster’s own pride, he might not have been born at all; but Sheor was laughing too hard to remember that all events must be preceded by prophecy – and anyway felt too drunk with all the years he had stolen from the Direnni to bite his tongue any.

The moment he cackled his last word, all of Betony Greater shook with premonition.

Now, at that time, Betony Greater was a land of many witches; many more than there are now, for there were no knights yet to hunt them. And all the witches in their covens heard the doom-breath of the land, and stopped their dances for a moment to ponder it – all but one, who, ever slow with the weave of her feet, had been caught mid-step. It was her who would sigh heavily with child – and so would come about Thagore, born not of man, but of witch.

Only when the newborn screamed his very first breath did Sheor come to know his own folly. The high rock-throne shuddered with fear; and in that fearful quiver, the mother-witch heard, over the throes of birth, just a glimpse of Thagore’s fate (she was no daedroth, after all, to know a strand by its whole length, to say nothing of its curl), which alone was near-enough to scare her spirit into the Void. And so she resolved to keep her son hidden away from any of this - forgetting that the only sure way to avoid prophecy is to count on it to do all your work.