Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-2165692-20140531154239/@comment-84.196.186.69-20141117032751

King in the North wrote: Or perhaps we could recognise that every culture in TES has multiple real life influences in addition to having their own original ideas, and that no race can be relegated to having a single counterpart in our world. These things need not be mutually exclusive. The Nords are a fictional culture of the TES universe which is based on the original ideas of Bethesda's writers, yet these writers were inspired by the real-life account of the Normans which was written by the 11th century historian & Benedictine monk, Goffredo Malaterra:

"Specially marked by cunning, despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imitation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavishness and greediness, that is, perhaps uniting, as they certainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the very boys were orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war."

This helps to clarify why Bethesda gave the Nords a racial bonus to speechcraft, which otherwise seems a bit odd for a group of consummate, battleaxe-wielding barbarians. It is a reference to the famed oratory skills of the Normans, as described by Malaterra.