It was pretty hopeless to search for "The Elder Scrolls", though I tried, but I had to make a thread about this...

As a relative newbie to the series, I have only played Oblivion (sad, I know). Therefore I know nothing about the lore, except for the broad strokes told in Oblivion and what I've learned from reading on the UESP and the Imperial Library. Information on the Elder Scrolls, that is the scrolls themselves, have been scarce. At least what I have been able to dig up from those two sites, and also by Googling.

I have heard members on this forum (mainly a certain thread in the Skyrim section) talk about five prophecies written on a wall and that there are multiple prophecies on several other scrolls (it might have been the otehr way around, I don't quite remember), which led to the discussion if Skyrim was to be the last in the series.

Now to the problem: What exactly did the Elder Scrolls foretell (if that is a known fact, I'm not quite sure), and how did the information about there being so and so many prophecies rise? Just the broad strokes, if you don't care to write an essay about it.

Many thanks in advance,
- TBD

There are numerous elder scrolls.

They tell the history of the world, and the parts that havent happened yet can be 'read' by people today as visions.
Doing this leaves them blind.
They are open to more than one interpretation, so different people may get different 'histories of the future'.
Once the events a scroll describe happen, the text becomes solid and totally unchangeable and can be seen as history.

The Elder Scrolls foretell everything, and nothing. They don't say "on Tuesday, January 18th, Lady N will have coffee and waffles for breakfast." Instead they might show a vague picture of someone who looks like me munching on something that kinda looks like waffles. All that would only be visible to a select set of monks for a few seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wqc1vvaEng

i think the confusion here stems from Alduin's wall.

The wall is not an Elder Scroll.

It is just one prophecy written on a wall ( a nicely carved one at that). The actual Elder Scrolls predict all the events that will happen in all of the eras ( except that it is always a bit vague about the future as it is mutable) and can also talk about the events of the past (at least most of them, e.g. no Dragon Break revelations). And not everyone can read them as has been mentioned; but nice little moths can help you.

They even have nice shiny scroll cases, or at least they did

I hear JHUNAL helps too.

Didn't he leave Skyrim? You'd be better off with Julianos