Hjalti the Submerged, Or How a Beard Does Not a Nord Make

Hjalti the Submerged, Or How a Beard Does Not a Nord Make

by Tabor Hul'tegga


    It is a well-known fact that Hjalti Early-Beard was a native of the world-renowned kingdom of Alcaire, but what most sources gloss over is the reality and the fact that Hjalti was, in fact, not an Alcairean at all but rather a member of a far lesser-known race, albeit powerful in their own right; one of a glorious history and associated as much with the proper and refined gallantries of the Middle Iliac as with the unmatched riches of the pearl-paved dome cities of the Cepholomer. Hjalti was, undoubtedly, a Delessian, an inhabitant of the submerged region which has historically often and in large part de facto belonged to the kingdom of Alcaire. It is this intertwined nature of Alcaire and Dellesia which has confused many a thinker into wrongly believing the Bretic tale, while some have gone as far as to imply a Nordic origin of the man and the myth.

    Conferring with the few scant manuscripts left over in backwater archives that are yet to be reached by the most efficient and vigorous of Imperial clerks, masters of categorising thot-forms and signing parchments and paragons of virtuous archiving, from the cabinet of anti-anti-Imperial-thought activities; the fact is made clear as time after time, scribes note the peculiar feature of the famed Colovian knight, namely the absence of any noticeable nasal extremity. It is said that instead of inhaling and exhaling in a healthy manner befitting of a cultured Cyrodiilian - that is, in and out of said breathing organ -, Hjalti would resort to the custom of breathing through his mouth to ensure proper intake of air. That would naturally lead many scholars of the time to erroneously conclude that Hjalti was, in fact, a Nord, but this is completely false, as anyone even tangentially familiar with the conditions of the Delessian folk, or at the very least anyone with a grain of common sense can attest to. After all, what good is a nose to someone born of the sea? And what would a Nord be doing dipping his feet in the Middle Iliac?
    It is no doubt that Hjalti did indeed ensure that the appropriate quantity of air enters his body by doing so with an orifice that most consider proper for feasting and orating only, and he preferred to do so while in the familiar, safe confines of the royal ponds that he had so vivaciously constructed all across Cyrod-Upon-Rumare. The location of his capital, itself, is telling of his heritage – in the heart of the Cyrodiilic rainforest, overflowing with the same waters that flow through Dellesia.