Lore talk:Old Hroldan
Old Hroldan and The Reach: disputed lands.Edit
Hi everyone,
The borders of realms, geographic zones or Tamriel imperial provinces have been changing for centuries. Old Hroldan seems to be a perfect case of a conflict changing zone. The article states categorically that Old Hroldan is south-western skyrim. Of the 4 sources used, any can be used to justificate the former open line in the article and the general "nordicist" tone of the article (this is the Lore page, not the skyrim one).
The Reach, where Old Hroldan is (was?), it's clearly a Breton/Reachmen/High Rock zone in origin. The "4 Old Holds" points the Nord continue core dominion in the East. Even Falkreath appears to have been part of colovian states (and Cyrodiil) before Tiber Septim (Talos/... Hjalti!). The 4E Skyrim territory was not the same in the past. The nord invaders, came from Atmora to the north-eastern part of 4E Skyrim and after their brief first expansion, don't returned to dominate the south-western part of "4E Skyrim" until much later (politically only, the demographics of The Reach continued to be reachmen/breton in overwhelming majority). In Tiber Septim times, the Reach was part of High Rock and Falkreath was a colovian petty kingdom with a clearly breton named King and with mentions in fonts to the breton influence in colovian and cyrodiilic culture in Reman I times!
Analysis of the sources: ----
-. Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition, we can read speaking of the first Orsinium foundation that the first orcs came to unnhabited are near Old Hroldan. This was at very first of 1E. And in this source we read ...Old H'roldan in High Rock....
-. Holdings of Jarl Gjalund (A really unknow Jarl, with dubious date) states: H'roldan - AHROLDAN - A Spacious Wooden Hall and Pasturage, recently Seized from the Reachmen. Silver and Iron as Tribute from the Natives.... In the current article this document is used as supposed proof of "reclaiming Old Hroldan from the Witchmen, or Reachmen, was something of a pastime..." and eell... this statement is unnacurated.
-. The Legend of Red Eagle and another Red Eagle books we can read how in 1E 1030, The Reach, organized in different native kingdoms, suffered the invasion of invaders from Cyrodiil. Nords are not even named, obviously.
-. Annals of the Dragonguard showns a Hroldan integrated in Reman Empire (1E 2804) but administrated by "jarls" (not explicitly but intuits)... but in the next line we can read how the locals are "reachmen" (only for point how The Reach demographics was everytime a reachmen matter).
-. In every Old Hroldan battle source (Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/Cyrodiil, The Arcturian Heresy, The "Madmen" of the Reach: A Cultural Treatise on the Forsworn, etc.) we can verify the domain of the area at the time by reachmen, and how they were sieged and finally defeated at the city (descriptions seems to be like a fortress) by Hjalti/Talos in alliance with the Nords. It's really interesting the next mention in The Arcturian Heresy: "...where the Nords and Reachmen had been fighting for centuries..."
-. Forge, Hammer and Anvil it's only a note "found in ruins near Old Hroldan" where we can see a post Tiber conquest nord smith and their assistant in the zone.
Finally we have the Forsworn Rebellion against nord "invaders" in 4E 174-176 and the demographic majority (as always throughout the centuries) of bretons in the Reach in TES V: Skyrim, dated 20 years after.
A second theme is the presentation of ingame information as "real world scaled" and this is really wrong. The TES games, all (Daggerfall included, not in surface but in a lot of another features) ARE SCALED, so a lot of settlements, farms, castles or geographic landmarks that exist in the "Lore TES World" are not present in the games for obvious reasons. "Real TES world Skyrim" has not 22 sq Km but 300.000 or more; "LORE Whiterun" should have 20.000. or 50.000 unhabitants not 70; We have some explicit examples in the LORE of the "real Tamriel numbers" how the "Daggerfall census", the TES Arena guide Tamriel size mention or the "from Mournhold 250 miles away we can see the red mountain that gives us a figure of 110,000 inhabitants, while TES II Daggerfall (and really much more in the "online thing") had not much more than 100 clonic pedestrians and 10 unique npcs in a enormous city for the videogames standards, but still 20 or 30 times smaller than the "real" space of a 115.000 people habitat (or real world pre-industrial second rank "big cities"); or another example of "simplification" is the use of nordic architecture, creatures or items to reachmen/breton contexts (for example all the Red Eagle quest is a super-nordic nonsense -nordic tomb, weapons and items, breton/reachmen "nordic draugh"...-). Old Hroldan clearly it's no longer the city that was once (the little scaled ruins ingame and the Forge, Hammer and Anvil mention to ruins, probably by Tiber sack and destruction), but on the debris and ruined walls could live a little population (50?, 200?) as in the historic ruined cities and not simply 3 people in a tavern... So the happy statement: "by the Fourth Era the settlement has been reduced to simply the Old Hroldan Inn, a resting place for travelers in the Reach." mix the simplyfied, scaled reality of the games with the TES LORE "real -fantasy- world".
My proposal ----
Keep from the current version:
"Old Hroldan (also spelled Old H'roldan, Old Hrol'dan, H'roldan, as well as Ahroldan in the language of the dragons) was a settlement in...
...Other records note that in 1E 2801, Emperor Kastav of the Reman Dynasty ordered hostages to be seized from the town to ensure the jarls met conscription quotas...
...the settlement has been reduced to simply the Old Hroldan Inn, a resting place for travelers in the Reach.[8] The inn, which is wedged between ruins, mountains, and rivers, boasts to its patrons of harboring Tiber Septim the night he arrived.[4][8] Sightings of ethereal warriors at the inn coinciding with the appearance of the Last Dragonborn gave credence to the inn's claim "
And add or reorganize information, to keep the lore sense, the reachmen importance a balanced information, etc. So new version could be (we need grammar revision! my english is not very good):
"...
Old Hroldan (also spelled Old H'roldan, Old Hrol'dan, H'roldan, as well as Ahroldan in the language of the dragons) was a settlement in the Reach [source]. Over years Old Hroldan and the Reach have been a disputed area and are presented in the chronicles as part of both, High Rock [source] or Skyrim [source]. The reachmen, a tribal people of breton extraction, have been considered the native population of the area that over different eras [source] fought against nordic and imperial invasions on many occasions in their history, occasionally they have been defeated, only to rebel some time later [note, with all lost and revolts].
History
The unnhabited near area was occupied by orcs by the beginning of 1E, before the first founding of Orsinium [source]. The First Empire of the Nords likely conquered the zone in their expansion across all North-western Tamriel, but we don't have precise references about Old Hroldan or The Reach [source]. In 1E 1030, the Red Eagle, a legendary hero of the reachmen, unified The Reach petty kingdoms against the empress Hestra of Cyrodiil invasion [source]. Other records note that in 1E 2801, Emperor Kastav of the Reman Dynasty ordered hostages to be seized from the town to ensure the jarls met conscription quotas [source].
Old Hroldan played an important role in the Battle of Old Hroldan where a young man later know as Tiber Septim besieged and conquered the city helped by nordic-colovian forces,[source].
Old Hroldan in TES V: Skyrim
In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim the settlement has been reduced to simply the Old Hroldan Inn, a resting place for travelers in the Reach.[8] The inn, which is wedged between ruins, mountains, and rivers, boasts to its patrons of harboring Tiber Septim the night he arrived.[4][8] Sightings of ethereal warriors at the inn coinciding with the appearance of the Last Dragonborn gave credence to the inn's claim.
..."
The article probably need a grammar correction.
If someone thinks that I'm wrong or forgot some aspect or information, please discuss here.
--Illo (talk) 02:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
- Agreed that there is too much Skyrim-focus on here. A notable factor you may have overlooked though is Reman's splitting of the Reach in 1E 2704 between High Rock (Western Reach) and Skyrim (The Reach), forever solidifying that the entity named "The Reach" is geographically within Skyrim (even if it repeatedly becomes politically independent). Notably, from the sources you've presented, only those dated prior to 2704 mention Old Hroldan being in High Rock.
- On your proposed rewrite: we can only include the true facts and undisputed implications, so we'll probably be alright with "The First Empire of the Nords likely conquered the zone", as long as we have a source for their expansion across all North-western Tamriel, but we'll have to leave out "we don't have precise references about Old Hroldan", as saying what we don't have is not necessary. The section about "Old Hroldan in Skyrim" will have to reference Old Hroldan in the Fourth Era, as the Lorespace should not include direct mention of the games. --Enodoc (talk) 10:21, 11 October 2016 (UTC)