Tamriel Data:The Talking Guar of Vhul

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The Talking Guar of Vhul

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Book One: The Tale

There are a great many beasts in Mundus known to speak, but the simple guar is certainly not counted among them. One glance into its oafish eyes reveals this to be indisputably true. And yet, there is a tale to be told of Mudfoot, the talking guar of Vhul.

There are many accounts from supposed witnesses, but with the passage of time it has become nearly impossible to strain the dewdrops of truth from the coagulated sap of rumor and jest. Indeed, this story is of personal importance to me - having heard the story countless times as a youth, yet never seeing any evidence as to its veracity, I've long yearned to get to the bottom of this local historical curiosity. My own grandfather is said to have witnessed the speaking guar himself in his time, but as he was killed in the Arnesian War when I was young, I never had the chance to hear him tell of it.

Our tale begins with Balyn Omathan, a poor whickweat farmer living in a simple shack in the mucklands southwest of Vhul. Thus goes the story - one morning, as Balyn began setting about his work of crawling through the mud to prune his whickweat stalks, he heard a huffing and puffing (or perhaps a scuffling and chuffling) behind his back.

He turned in time to see his guar Mudfoot a few dozen paces away, frantically hopping up and down, calling out "Beware! Beware!". As alarming as this sight surely must have been, Balyn was a bit more immediately concerned with the massive nix-hound that had latched onto his shoulder. It tore into his flesh with its mandibles, but Balyn was able to return the insult by sliding his rusty whickweat knife into the beast's proboscis. He was wounded, but not terribly so, and his dull hooked blade had been enough to drive the creature away.

Balyn was shaking still as he bandaged himself within the safety of his shack when he remembered that his guar had spoken. He was perplexed, and rightly so, for when he approached the beast and rubbed its great snout, it would not speak again. Had he imagined it? Was he losing his mind?

Several days later, Balyn traveled into the town of Vhul with Mudfoot, who pulled his heavy whickweat cart to market. And a strange thing happened - Mudfoot began to greet the townsfolk as they walked past. "Hello!", "Good day!" he called out as people walked past, stopping them in their tracks.

Soon a crowd had gathered to see the talking guar. Balyn sold every single stalk of his whickweat that day, and was delighted to return to his farm with a light cart and a heavy coinpurse. Soon he had made a habit of bringing Mudfoot into town every few days, whether or not he had any harvest to sell. This provided him with a steady stream of income, as travelers through the town were all too happy to throw a coin to the farmer to see such a thing. He was said to tell jokes and riddles, comment on one's appearance, and even recite poems.

This continued on for several years. Nobody really knew Balyn's name in town, but Mudfoot had become a bit of a local celebrity. And so it was for a time, until, as all things on Nirn eventually must, Mudfoot died, and his story began to fade into legend.

This is the tale as I have heard it told many times. Now, dear reader, I assure you that I am ever the skeptic, but let us consider some of the so-called logical explanations which have been offered previously by others, and I shall rebuke each one.

Book Two: The Investigation

Let us now consider the theories that have been proposed to explain the case of Mudfoot, the talking guar of Vhul.

The most plain explanation is that Balyn, a poor farmer, simply lied and somehow planned the entire occurrence in order to deceive the townsfolk and make some easy coin.

This trickery would have no doubt required some magical ability. And yet, this simple farmer was said to be barely able to speak himself - let alone make a guar speak. He was almost certainly illiterate, without any education, familial connections, or political ties. Stated plainly, this dull farmer had no means at his disposal to play such a trick.

Surely then, reader, you've considered that some other party was playing a trick on Balyn. Perhaps some unseen wizard crouched in the bushes and staged the initial nix-hound attack, then used magical powers to force a burst of air through the guar's gullet and manipulated its airways just so, playing it like a giant fleshy flute, to create the illusion of speech - then followed Balyn into town, still unseen, on numerous occasions, to continue the ruse for years?

Let us also consider the amount of arcane talent that would be needed to manipulate the creature as supposed above without immediately killing it. This would require the attention of a very talented (and apparently very bored) wizard. I ask, dear reader, that you consider the following - what master wizard would bother with such a thing? How astonishingly drunk would a Telvanni mage have to become before dreaming up such a task?

So then let us discuss another possibility, more implausible still, but worth ruling out: perhaps this talking guar was the result of some manner of Daedric trickery? Perhaps the beast was influenced by forces from afar? I see no reason to believe this, simply because the farmer lived for nearly another twenty years after the guar's eventual death, with no apparent madness or tragedy occurring.

The trickster Daedra, such as Sheogorath and his servants, rarely act with much subtlety - once their game is through, their playthings usually walk no more amongst the living, or are otherwise broken in dramatic fashion. I find it hard to believe that any Daedra would have simply chosen to warn a farmer of a nix-hound attack, then slightly enrich him with petty sums of gold for the next several years, without consequence.

The fourth explanation appears on the surface to be the most reasonable - that the entire story is a fabrication. A legend, a tall tale, a misrembrance told across generations. And indeed, I would assume this to be the case.

In my quest for answers, however, I have managed to find original correspondence from contemporary witnesses. This does not prove that the story is true - but it does prove that it is not a modern fabrication, and people of the time did in fact report a talking guar.

In researching this tale, I visited the tax and census office of Old Ebonheart, where Vhul's taxes were processed in Balyn's time. Tax and census data is typically considered to be highly private and restricted, but the records of deceased individuals can be accessed using a Historical Inquiry Request. Say what you will of the Empire's cultural influence in our lands, but they have always proven to be superb record keepers.

I uncovered an official letter from Goras Indavel, a local tax collector whose jurisdiction included Vhul at the time. He wrote a report back to his regional post which mentioned an encounter with "a guar that spoke as a man".

These reports were official documents, and tax collectors were required to report on any irregularities or notable events in the course of performing their duties. Each report was signed under an honor-oath which extended to the financial data logged within. It was thus a high crime against the Tribunal to lie on such a report.

We can then say with a high degree of confidence that Goras Indavel did indeed witness a talking guar - or at least genuinely believed that he had. There would be no incentive to make such an outlandish claim on an official document. Dated 14th of Rain's Hand, 3E 358, the relevant text states:

"Returned to the inn in Vhul after spending the day collecting dues to the north of the town. Was surprised to meet one Balyn Omathan in the street outside the inn, accepting coins for the display of a guar that spoke as a man. I tossed him a coin out of curiosity, and indeed the creature spoke. It asked me where I was from and even told a dirty joke which I shall not repeat in this dispatch. I must admit I was impressed. I asked Balyn what his trade was - I had suspected from the roughness of his face that he was a farmer, and I was correct. I shall be visiting farms in his area outside the town tomorrow morning. We shall see if he declares income from his guar."

A seasonal tax record from the following year lists Balyn's trade as "farmer", but also includes a note of "secondary income - street performer / other". Indeed, only about 60% of Balyn's income seems to have come from farming in that year. It is then safe to conclude that there is some degree of truth to this story.

There was indeed a Dunmer named Balyn Omathan with a guar that seemed to be able to speak, and he profited modestly from this talent for several years. This is the first evidence that I have seen which proves there is any shred of truth to the story at all, and yet it comes so tantalizingly close to an explanation without clarifying anything.

How did this creature speak?

How did it learn to say the things that it is alleged to have said?

Did it think for itself, or was it trained to simply replicate the sounds of speech?

These are questions which shall likely forever perplex me. We now know that Mudfoot the guar did indeed speak - but the question of how and why he spoke shall most probably always a mystery remain.