Azura, whose sphere is dusk and dawn, the magic in-between realms of twilight, known as Moonshadow, Mother of the Rose, and Queen of the Night Sky.

Boethiah, whose sphere is deceit and conspiracy, and the secret plots of murder, assassination, treason, and unlawful overthrow of authority.

Clavicus Vile, whose sphere is the granting of power and wishes through ritual invocations and pacts.

Hermaeus Mora, whose sphere is scrying of the tides of Fate, of the past and future as read in the stars and heavens, and in whose dominion are the treasures of knowledge and memory.

Hircine, whose sphere is the Hunt, the Sport of Daedra, the Great Game, the Chase, known as the Huntsman and the Father of Manbeasts.

Malacath, whose sphere is the patronage of the spurned and ostracized, the keeper of the Sworn Oath and the Bloody Curse.

Mehrunes Dagon, whose sphere is Destruction, Change, Revolution, Energy, and Ambition.

Mephala, whose sphere is obscured to mortals; known by the names Webspinner, Spinner, and Spider; whose only consistent theme seems to be interference in the affairs of mortals for her amusement.

Meridia, whose sphere is obscured to mortals; who is associated with the energies of living things.

Molag Bal, whose sphere is the domination and enslavement of mortals; whose desire is to harvest the souls of mortals and to bring mortals’ souls within his sway by spreading seeds of strife and discord in the mortal realms.

Namira, whose sphere is the ancient Darkness; known as the Spirit Daedra, ruler of sundry dark and shadowy spirits; associated with spiders, insects, slugs, and other repulsive creatures which inspire mortals with an instinctive revulsion.

Nocturnal, whose sphere is the night and darkness; who is known as the Night Mistress.

Peryite, whose sphere is the ordering of the lowest orders of Oblivion, known as the Taskmaster.

Sanguine, whose sphere is hedonistic revelry and debauchery, and passionate indulgences of darker natures.

Sheogorath, whose sphere is Madness, and whose motives are unknowable.

Vaermina, whose sphere is the realm of dreams and nightmares, and from whose realm issue forth evil omens.

Especially marked for special interest under the heading "Malacath" is a reference to SCOURGE, blessed by Malacath, and dedicated to the use of mortals. In short, the reference suggests that any Daedra attempting to invoke the weapon’s powers will be expelled into the voidstreams of Oblivion.

"Of the legendary artifacts of the Daedra, many are well known, like Azura’s Star, and Sheogorath’s Wabbajack. Others are less well known, like Scourge, Mackkan’s Hammer, Bane of Daedra …."

"… yet though Malacath blessed Scourge to be potent against his Daedra kin, he thought not that it should fall into Daedric hands, then to serve as a tool for private war among caitiff and forsaken. Thus did Malacath curse the device such that, should any dark kin seek to invoke its powers, that a void should open and swallow that Daedra, and purge him into Oblivion’s voidstreams, from thence to pathfind back to the Real and Unreal Worlds in the full order of time."

By Seif-ij Hidja

"When thou enterest into Oblivion, Oblivion entereth into thee."

— Nai Tyrol-Llar

The greatest mage who ever lived was my master Morian Zenas.You have heard of him as the author of the book "On Oblivion," the standard text for all on matters Daedric. Despite many entreaties over the years, he refused to update his classic book with his new discoveries and theories because he found that the more one delves into these realms, the less certain one is. He did not want conjecture. He wanted facts.

For decades before and after the publication of "On Oblivion," Zenas compiled a vast personal library on the subject of Oblivion, the home of the Daedra. He divided his time between this research and personal magical growth, acting on the assumption that should he succeed in finding a way into the dangerous world beyond and behind our own, he would need much power to wander its dark paths.

Twelve years before Zenas began the journey he had prepared his life to make, he hired me as his assistant. I possessed the three attributes he required for the position: I was young and eager to help without question. I could read any book once and memorize its contents, and despite my youth, I was already a Master of Conjuration.

Zenas too was a Master of Conjuration—indeed, a master at all the known and unknown schools of magic—but he did not want to rely on his ability alone in the most perilous of his research. In an underground vault, he summoned Daedra to interview them on their native land. For that, he needed another conjurer to make certain they came, were bound, and were sent away again without incident.

I will never forget that vault, not for its look which was plain and unadorned, but for what you couldn’t see. There were scents that lingered long after the summoned creatures had left, flowers and sulfur, sex and decay, power and madness. They haunt me still to this very day.

Conjuration, for the layman unacquainted with its workings, connects the caster’s mind with that of the summoned. It is a tenuous link, meant only to lure, hold, and dismiss, but in the hands of a master, it can be much stronger. The Psijics and Dwemer can (in the Dwemer’s case, perhaps I should say "could") connect with the minds of others and converse miles apart: a skill that is sometimes called telepathy.

Over the course of my employment, Zenas and I developed such a link between one another. It was accidental, a result of two powerful conjurers working closely together, but we decided that it would be invaluable should he succeed in traveling to Oblivion. Since the denizens of that land could be touched even by the skills of an amateur conjurer, it was possible we could continue to communicate while he was there, so I could record his discoveries.

The "Doors to Oblivion," as Morian Zenas would say, are not easily found. We exhausted many possibilities before we found one where we held the key.

The Psijics of Artaeum have a place they call The Dreaming Cave, where it is said one can enter into the Daedric realms and return. Iachesis, Sotha Sil, Nematigh, and many others have been recorded as using this means, but despite many entreaties to the order, we were denied its use. Celarus, the leader of the order, told us it had been sealed off for the safety of all.

The reader may have heard of other doors, and he may be assured we attempted to find them all.

Some are pure legend, or at any rate, not traceable based on the information left behind. There are references in lore to Maruhk’s Abyss, the Corryngton Mirror, the Mantellan Crux, the Crossroads, the Mouth, a riddle of an alchemical formula called Jacinth and Rising Sun, and many other places and objects that are said to be doors, but we could not find these.

Some exist, but cannot be entered safely. The whirlpool in the Abecean called the Maelstrom of Bal can make ships disappear, and it may be a portal into Oblivion, but the trauma of riding its waters would surely slay any who tried. Likewise, we did not consider it worth the risk to leap from the Pillar of Thras, a thousand-foot-tall spiral of coral, though we witnessed the sacrifices the Sload made there. Some victims were killed by the fall, but some indeed seemed to vanish before being dashed on the rocks. Since the Sload did not seem certain why some were taken and some died, we did not favor the odds of the plunge.

The simplest and most maddeningly complex way to go to Oblivion was simply to cease to be here and begin to be there. Throughout history, there are examples of mages who seemed to travel to the realms beyond ours seemingly at will. Many of these voyagers are long dead, if they ever existed, but we were able to find one still living. In a tower off Zafirbel Bay on the island of Vvardenfell in the province of Morrowind, there exists a very old, very reclusive wizard named Divayth Fyr.

Divayth Fyr was not easy to reach, and he was reluctant to share with Morian Zenas the secret Door to Oblivion. Fortunately, my master’s knowledge of lore impressed Fyr, and he taught him the way. I would be breaking my promise to Zenas and Fyr to explain the procedure here, and I would not divulge it even if I could. If there is dangerous knowledge to be had, that is it, but I do not reveal too much by saying Fyr’s scheme relied on exploiting a series of portals to various realms created by a Telvanni wizard long missing and presumed dead. Against the disadvantage of this limited number of access points, we weighed the relative reliability and security of passage, and we considered ourselves fortunate in our informant.

Morian Zenas then left this world to begin his exploration. I stayed at the library to transcribe his information and help him with any research he needed.

"Dust," he whispered to me on the first day of his voyage. Despite the inherent dreariness of the word, I could hear his excitement in his voice, echoing in my mind. "I can see from one end of the world to the other in a million shades of gray. There is no sky or ground or air, only particles, floating, falling, whirling about me. I must levitate and breathe by magical means …."

Zenas explored the nebulous land for some time, encountering vaporous creatures and palaces of smoke. Though he never met the Daedric Prince, we concluded that he was in Ashpit, said to be the home of Malacath, where anguish, betrayal, and broken promises filled the bitter air like ash.

"The sky is on fire," I heard him say as he moved on to the next realm. "The ground is sludge, but traversable. I see blackened ruins all around me, like a war was fought here in the distant past. The air is freezing. I cast blooms of warmth all around me, but it still feels like daggers of ice stabbing me in all directions."

This was Coldharbour, where Molag Bal was the realm’s Daedric Prince. It appeared to Zenas as if it were a future Nirn governed under the Lord of Brutality: desolate and barren, filled with suffering. I could hear Morian Zenas weep at the images he saw and shiver at the sight of the Imperial Palace, spattered with blood and excrement.

"Too much beauty," Zenas gasped when he went to the next realm. "I am half blind. I see flowers and waterfalls, majestic trees, a city of silver, but it is all a blur. The colors run like water. It’s raining now, and the wind smells like perfume. This surely is Moonshadow, where Azura dwells."

Zenas was right, and astonishingly, he even had audience with the Queen of Dusk and Dawn in her rose palace. She listened to his tale with a smile and foretold to him the coming of the Nerevarine. My master found Moonshadow so lovely, he wished to stay there, half-blind, forever, but he knew he must move on and complete his journey of discovery.

"I am in a storm," he told me as he entered the next realm. He described the landscape of dark twisted trees, howling spirits, and billowing mist, and I thought he might have entered the Deadlands of Mehrunes Dagon. But then he said quickly, "No, I am no longer in a forest. There was a flash of lightning, and now I am on a ship. The mast is tattered. The crew is slaughtered. Something is coming through the waves … oh, gods! Wait, now, I am in a dank dungeon, in a cell …."

He was not in the Deadlands, but Quagmire, the nightmare realm of Vaermina. Every few minutes, there was a flash of lightning and reality shifted, always to something more horrible and horrifying. A dark castle one moment, a den of ravening beasts the next, a moonlit swamp, a coffin where he was buried alive. Fear got the better of my master, and he quickly passed to the next realm.

I heard him laugh, "I feel like I’m home now."

Morian Zenas described to me an endless library, shelves stretching on in every direction, stacks on top of stacks. Pages floated on a mystical wind that he could not feel. Every book had a black cover with no title. He could see no one, but felt the presence of ghosts moving through the stacks, rifling through books, ever searching.

It was Apocrypha, the home of Hermaeus Mora, where all forbidden knowledge can be found. I felt a shudder in my mind, but I could not tell if it was my master’s or mine.

Morian Zenas never traveled to another realm that I know of.

Throughout his visits to the first four realms, my master spoke to me constantly. Upon entering the Apocrypha, he became quieter, as he was lured into the world of research and study, the passions that had controlled his heart while on Nirn. I would frantically try to call to him, but he closed his mind to me.

Then he would whisper, "This cannot be …."

"No one would ever guess the truth …."

"I must learn more …."

"I see the world, a last illusion’s shimmer, it is crumbling all around us …."

I would cry back to him, begging him to tell me what was happening, what he was seeing, what he was learning. I even tried using Conjuration to summon him as if he were a Daedra himself, but he refused to leave. Morian Zenas was lost.

I last received a whisper from him six months ago. Before then, it had been five years, and three before that. His thoughts are no longer intelligible in any language. Perhaps he is still in Apocrypha, lost but happy, in a trap he refuses to escape.

I would save him if I could.

I would silence his whispers if I could.

By Aranea Drethan, Healer and Dissident Priest

There is little chance of our ever understanding the various orders of Daedra and their relationships to the Daedra Lords and their dominions. Of the varieties of Daedra that appear in our world, and the varieties of their relationships to their fellows and their Daedra patrons, there is no end. In one place and time they are seen to be this, and in another place and time they are seen to be the opposite, and in another place and time they are seen to be both this and that, in completely contradictory terms.

What Daedra serves this Prince? What Daedra gives orders, and what Daedra serves, and in what hierarchy, and under what circumstances? What Daedra exist in fellowship with one another, and what Daedra have eternal enmity to one another, and what Daedra are solitary, or social, and by turns solitary or social? There are no limits to the varieties of behaviors that may be observed, and in one place they may be this, and in another place they may that, and all rules describing them are always found to be contradictory and in exception to others.

Further, from whom may we seek answers to our questions about these orders? From mortals, who know little but what they may observe of another world? From the gods, who speak in riddles, of enigmas wrapped in mysteries, and who keep things from us, the better to preserve their dominion over us? From the Daedra themselves, who are never the models of straightforwardness or truthtelling, but rather are famous for misstatements and obfuscations?

And even were the Daedra to speak the truth, how can we know if they know themselves, or that there is any truth about them that is to be known, or are all arrangements among the Daedra protean and ever subject to change?

In short, what is to be known is little and what is to be trusted is nothing.

These things being said, I shall venture to relate what I have observed and heard of the relationships of the servants of Lord Dagon in my brief service to the Telvanni Wizard Divayth Fyr, when I sought him out and offered to bring peace to the victims of corprus in his sanitarium.

Divayth Fyr told me that he, by choice, trafficked only with two Daedra Powers—Mehrunes Dagon and Azura.

Azura, he said, knew and understood all things, and declined to speak of these things, or only spoke in riddles.

Mehrunes Dagon, on the other hand, out of pride, fixity of purpose, and a predictable lack of subtlety in thought, knew nothing and understood nothing, and was inclined to speak freely and without falsehood.

Divayth Fyr said that Dagon’s chief servants, the Dremora, were like him in pride, fixed purpose, and lack of subtlety, with the addition of the peculiar traits of honor and loyalty, both within their class and within their relationship to Lord Dagon.

And Divayth Fyr said that the Dremora were ordered into clans and castes, and these clans and castes were well-defined. Individual Dremora might rise or fall in ranks, or move back and forth among clans, but only when regulated by complex oaths, and only at the will and pleasure of their Lord Dagon.

The Dremora refer to themselves as "The Kyn" ("the People"), contrasting themselves to other Daedra, whom they consider unthinking animals. The term "kynaz" refers to a member of the Dremora race ("he of the Kyn").

The least of kyn castes are the Churls, the undistinguished rabble of the lowest rank of Dremora. Churls are obsequious to superiors but ferociously cruel to humans and other Daedra.

Next in rank are the Caitiffs, creatures of uncalculating zeal, energy without discrimination. Caitiffs are used as irregulars in the faction wars of the Daedra, as berserkers and shock troops, undisciplined and unreliable, but eager and willing.

The highest of the regular rank-and-file of Dremora troops are the Kynvals, warrior-knights who have distinguished themselves in battle, and shown the deliberate steadiness of potential war leaders.

Above the rank and file warriors of the Churl, Caitiff, and Kynval castes are the officer castes.

A Kynreeve is a clan sheriff or clan officer. Kynreeves are typically associated either with a clan fighting unit or an administrative office in the order of battle.

The Kynmarcher is the lord and high officer of a Daedric citadel, outpost, or gate. A Kymarcher’s command is usually associated both with a unit and with a "fief"— a location or territory for which he is responsible.

Above the Kymarcher is the Markynaz, or "grand duke." A Markynaz is a lord of lords, and member of the Markyn, Mehrunes Dagon’s Council of Lords.

The highest rank of Dremora is the Valkynaz, or "prince." This warrior duke is a member of the Valkyn, Mehrunes Dagon’s personal guard. The Valkynaz are rarely encountered on Tamriel; normally they remain by Mehrunes Dagon’s side, or serve as commanders of operations of particular importance or interest to Dagon.

Of the varieties of other Daedra I encountered while I served in Divayth Fyr’s Corprusarium—Ogrims and Golden Saints, Daedroths and Winged Twilights, Scamps and Clannfear—there is much that might be said, but little that is helpful or reliable.

I did note, however, that when Divayth Fyr sought a Daedra of a character like unto the Dremora, but of greater power, and greater inclination for independence and initiative, or solely as a master, he summoned Xivilai, who are like the Dremora in personality and temperament, except that they hate subordination, and are liable to disloyalty and betrayal when they feel they have not been treated with the proper deference and respect.

The feral, beastlike Daedra like the Clannfear and the Daedroth appear in the service of many different Daedric Powers, and may represent common creatures existing like wild animals in the wildernesses of Oblivion. Other savage, semi-intelligent creatures like Scamps and Spider Daedra may also be found in the realms of various Daedra Lords.

The case of the Elemental Atronachs, on the other hand, is less certain. Flame and Frost Atronachs, for example, appear to be highly intelligent, but not all varieties of Elemental Atronachs seem to be social or to have the power of speech. Divayth Fyr preferred not to summon or deal with these creatures, had little experience with them, and showed no inclination to speculate upon their nature, so I learned little about them during my time at Tel Fyr.

By Septimus Signus, College of Winterhold

Imagine living beneath the waves with a strong-sighted blessing of most excellent fabric. Holding the fabric over your gills, you would begin to breathe—drink its warp and weft. Though the plant-matter fibers imbue your soul, the wretched plankton would pollute the cloth until it stank to heavens of prophecy. This is one manner in which the Scrolls first came to pass, but are we the sea, or the breather, or the fabric? Or are we the breath itself?

Can we flow through the Scrolls as knowledge flows through, being the water, or are we the stuck morass of sea-filth that gathers on the edge?

Imagine, again, this time but different. A bird cresting the wind is lifted by a gust and downed by a stone. But the stone can come from above, if the bird is upside down. Where, then, did the gust come from? And which direction? Did the gods send either, or has the bird decreed their presence by her own mindmaking?

The all-sight of the Scrolls makes a turning of the mind such that relative positions are absolute in their primacy.

I ask you again to imagine for me. This time you are beneath the ground, a tiny acorn planted by some well-meaning Elf-maiden of the woodlands for her pleasure. You wish to grow but fear what you may become, so you push off the water, the dirt, the sun, to stay in your hole. But it is in the very pushing that you become a tree, in spite of yourself. How did that happen?

The acorn is a kind of tree-egg in this instance, and the knowledge is water and sun. We are the chicken inside the egg, but also the dirt. The knowledge from the Scrolls is what we push against to become full-sighted ourselves.

One final imagining before your mind closes from the shock of ever-knowing. You are now a flame burning bright blue within a vast emptiness. In time you see your brothers and sisters, burnings of their own in the distance and along your side. A sea of pinpoints, a constellation of memories. Each burns bright, then flickers. Then two more take its place—but not forever, lest the void fill with rancid light that sucks the thought.

Each of our minds is actually the emptiness, and the learnings of the Scrolls are the pinpoints. Without their stabbing light, my consciousness would be as a vast nothingness, unknowing its emptiness as a void is unknowing of itself. But the burnings are dangerous, and must be carefully tended and minded and brought to themselves and spread to their siblings.

(Note by Ancestor Moth Brother Quintus Nerevelus: Found this at the back of the library stacks behind the Scroll of Rhunen. It had obviously been there a long time, yet the printer’s sigil notes its publication date as "4E 195." This is obviously a transcription error. I think.)

Sithis is the start of the house. Before him was nothing, but the foolish Altmer have names for and revere this nothing. That is because they are lazy slaves. Indeed, from the Sermons, "stasis asks merely for itself, which is nothing."

Sithis sundered the nothing and mutated the parts, fashioning from them a myriad of possibilities. These ideas ebbed and flowed and faded away and this is how it should have been.

One idea, however, became jealous and did not want to die; like the stasis, he wanted to last. This was the demon Anui-El, who made friends, and they called themselves the Aedra. They enslaved everything that Sithis had made and created realms of everlasting imperfection. Thus are the Aedra the false gods, that is, illusion.

So Sithis begat Lorkhan and sent him to destroy the universe. Lorkhan! Unstable mutant!

Lorkhan had found the Aedric weakness. While each rebel was, by their nature, immeasurable, they were, through jealousy and vanity, also separate from each other. They were also unwilling to go back to the nothing of before. So while they ruled their false dominions, Lorkhan filled the void with a myriad of new ideas. These ideas were legion. Soon it seemed that Lorkhan had a dominion of his own, with slaves and everlasting imperfections, and he seemed, for all the world, like an Aedra. Thus did he present himself as such to the demon Anui-El and the Eight Givers: as a friend.

Go unto the Sharmat Dagoth Ur as a friend.

AE HERMA MORA ALTADOON PADHOME LKHAN AE AI

(Copyist’s note: This book appears to be about the reputed qualities of birthsigns for those born under certain constellations, and does not describe those mysterious stelae commonly referred to as "Mundus Stones.")

Ffoulke’s Preferred Text
by Ffoulke

The Stars of Tamriel are divided into thirteen constellations. Three of them are the major constellations, known as the Guardians. These are the Warrior, the Mage, and the Thief. Each of the Guardians protects its three Charges from the thirteenth constellation, the Serpent.

When the sun rises near one of the constellations, it is that constellation’s season. Each constellation has a season of approximately one month. The Serpent has no season, for it moves about in the heavens, usually threatening one of the other constellations.

The Warrior

The Warrior is the first Guardian Constellation, and he protects his charges during their seasons. The Warrior’s own season is Last Seed, when his Strength is needed for the harvest. His Charges are the Lady, the Steed, and the Lord. Those born under the sign of the Warrior are skilled with weapons of all kinds, but prone to short tempers.

The Mage

The Mage is a Guardian Constellation whose season is Rain’s Hand, when Magicka was first used by men. His Charges are the Apprentice, the Golem, and the Ritual. Those born under the sign of the Mage have more Magicka and talent for all kinds of spellcasting, but are often arrogant and absent-minded.

The Thief

The Thief is the last Guardian Constellation, and her season is the darkest month of Evening Star. Her Charges are the Lover, the Shadow, and the Tower. Those born under the sign of the Thief are not typically thieves, though they take risks more often than others and only rarely come to harm. They will run out of luck eventually, however, and so rarely live as long as those born under other signs.

The Serpent

The Serpent wanders about in the sky and has no season, though its motions are predictable to a degree. No characteristics are common to all who are born under the sign of the Serpent. Those born under this sign are the most blessed and the most cursed.

The Lady

The Lady is one of the Warrior’s Charges and her season is Heartfire. Those born under the sign of the Lady are kind and tolerant.

The Steed

The Steed is one of the Warrior’s Charges, and her season is Mid Year. Those born under the sign of the Steed are impatient, always hurrying from one place to another.

The Lord

The Lord’s season is First Seed, and he oversees all of Tamriel during the planting. Those born under the sign of the Lord are stronger and healthier than those born under other signs.

The Apprentice

The Apprentice’s season is Sun’s Height. Those born under the sign of the apprentice have a special affinity for magic of all kinds, but are also more vulnerable to magic.

The Atronach

The Atronach (often called the Golem) is one of the Mage’s Charges. Its season is Sun’s Dusk. Those born under this sign are natural sorcerers with deep reserves of Magicka, but they cannot generate Magicka of their own.

The Ritual

The Ritual is one of the Mage’s Charges, and its season is Morning Star. Those born under this sign have a variety of abilities depending on the aspects of the moons and the Divines.

The Lover

The Lover is one of the Thief’s Charges and her season is Sun’s Dawn. Those born under the sign of the Lover are graceful and passionate.

The Shadow

The Shadow’s season is Second Seed. The Shadow grants those born under her sign the ability to hide in shadows.

The Tower

The Tower is one of the Thief’s Charges, and its season is Frostfall. Those born under the sign of the Tower have a knack for finding gold and can open locks of all kinds.

by Tyston Bane

No one—not the oldest Dark Elf of Mount Dagoth-Ur or the Ancient Sage of Solitude himself—can recall a time when the Orc did not ravage our fair Tamriel. Whatever foul and pestilent Daedra of Oblivion conjured them up could scarcely have created a more constant threat to the well-being of the civilized races of Tamriel than the obnoxious Orc.

Orcs are thankfully easy to recognize from other humanoids by their size—commonly forty pertans in height and fifteen thousand angaids in weight—their brutal pig-like features, and their stench. They are consistently belligerent, morally grotesque, intellectually moronic, and unclean. By all rights, the civilized races of Tamriel should have been able to purge the land of their blight eras ago, but their ferocity, animal cunning, and curious tribal loyalty have made them inevitable as leeches in a stagnant pool.

Tales of Orcish barbarity precede written record. When Jastyaga wrote of the Order of Diagna’s joining the armies of Daggerfall and Sentinel "to hold at bay the wicked Orcs in their foul Orsinium fastness … and burn aught in cleansing flame" in 1E 950, she assumed that any reader would be aware of the savagery of the Orcs. When the siege was completed thirty years later, after the death of many heroes including Gaiden Shinji, and the destruction of Orsinium scattered the Orcish survivors throughout the Wrothgarian Mountains, she further wrote, "The free peoples rejoiced for that their ancient fell enemy was dispersed into diverse parts." Obviously, the Orcs had been terrorizing the region of the Iliac Bay at least since the early years of the First Era.

A nereid stole my husband
My husband a nereid stole
Beware the maids of the seastrand
Lest you be the next we console.

We strolled blithely along the shore
Gathering shells and turning stones
When came the voice I now deplore
A voice, a song, such soaring tones!

At once, my husband quickly sped
"Wait!" I cried, "’Tis a nereid!"
But faster still he pressed ahead
Her sweet call could not be gainsaid.

Too late, alas, alas, too late
I found him swaying, deep in thrall
My worst fear sent to me by fate
He followed the nereid’s call.

And she, beautiful, cruel, and vain
Swam to her sisters, calling this back,
"Your husband was no prize to gain;
He’s yours once more, Lady Crookback!"

A nereid stole my husband
Returning him without delay
Poor me, near free from his demands
Stuck instead with him since that day!