Description:
Red Eagle's Bane is a unique, one-handed sword which has the same appearance as regular Ancient Nord Swords (LINK TO UESP? PIC). It is associated with the quest Rebel's Cairn, which is acquired by reading the book The Legend of Red Eagle. During the quest, the player will acquire the original form of the sword, called Red Eagle's Fury, which becomes Red Eagle's Bane at the end of the quest. Red Eagle, the swords original wielder, was an ancient king and warrior of the Reach, a region between Highrock, Skyrim, and Hammerfell, inhabited by an ethnic group called the Reachmen or Reachfolk. He lived in the First Era, thousands of years before the events of all of the The Elder Scrolls games. He refused to yield before the invading armies of the Empire of Cyrodiil, even when all the other kings and chieftains of the Reach had sworn allegiance or been killed. He wielded the flaming sword Red Eagle's Fury and became the first Briarheart (LINK), warriors who have their hearts ritualistically replaced with magical seeds of the Briar Heart Tree, making them much more powerful, ruthless, and without remorse. Like a berserkr (LINK), Red Eagle faced the final siege of his fortress naked, wielding only his sword, and, according to legend, defeated a thousand soldiers alone. However, when night fell and the battle was over, he also collapsed, and was laid in a tomb by his followers, to whom he bestowed his sword to carry on the rebellion, and then died. In the present of the game, the player will use Red Eagle's Fury as a key to unlock the burial chamber within Rebel's Cairn, and Red Eagle will rise in undeath to fight him. Upon killing him, the player can retrieve the sword-key from its slot, and it will then be called Red Eagle's Bane and do a higher amount of fire damage. Typically in Old Norse literature, a bani "bane" is the killer of someone or the implement which directly killed them. In Red Eagle's case, the sword, locked in the keyslot while battling him, is not used to kill him, making the new name a bit off the mark. While the player is certainly Red Eagle's bane, the sword can not be used in the battle. However, it is an interesting reuse of the Old Norse literary and naming trope of calling someone or something a bane (bani), such as the most famous dragon slayer (LINK), Sigurðr Fáfnisbani ("Fáfnir's (LINK) Bane"). It also reenacts the trope of the special sword taken from the burial mound, especially after grappling with the risen owner of the mound, unhappy at his disturbance.| Medieval Citation | Medieval Sources | Description | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyrfingr | Örvar-Odds saga (The Saga of Arrow-Odd) | Tyrfingr is a sword in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (LINK), the saga of Hervör and Heiðrekr, a legendary saga. This saga contains several poems which are... | Magic weapon Named weapon |