Online:The Great Siege of Orsinium

Book Information The Great Siege of Orsinium
ID	1493
See Also	Lore version
Collection	Words of the Poets
Locations
Found in the following locations: Bookshelves in Bangkorai, Reaper's March, and The Rift

The Great Siege of Orsinium

On the famous First Era conflict between Orcs and their neighbors in the Iliac Bay

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Ra Gada fought the tusky folk

From Hammerfell they drove them

In wrath withdrew they northward to

Orsinium, Orc city

Where found they welcome at the hands

Of King Atop the Scarpment,

Golkarr, mighty, Orc of wiles

Who thought to take advantage

To use infusion of new blood

To broaden Orcish holdings

Demands he made of Bretons south

Along the Bjoulsae River

For tariffs, tolls, ransoms, fees,

Or down would come Orc hammer

But Joile, the king in Daggerfall

Rejected Golkarr's dictum

Sent to Gaiden Shinji of

The Order of Diagna

Urged him with the Bretons join

To siege and sack Orc city

Marched they then to Wrothgar Scarp

Orsinium invested

They thought that Orcish walls could not

Withstand their worthy weapons

But city high upon the scarp

Was triple-gate defended

Obdurate Gates: each one greater

Than the one before it

Smelter, Hammer, Temper, they

Were called, by Orcish stonewrights

The folk of Mauloch stood atop

And hurled down baneful missiles

And Breton, Redguard, smitten sore

Drew back to lower regions

Laughed then the Orcs, and bared their tusks

At warrior Men confounded

While Golkarr smiled in high Scarp Keep

And praised the Wrothgar clan-kin

But Gaiden Shinji and King Joile

Were not abashed or shaken

They summoned grandees, knights, and counts

To bring their armsmen thither

Orsinium surrounded they

And settled in to siege it

While plots and plans were schemed and made

The walls and gates, to breach them

The Orcs were quite content to wait

From Jugular well-watered

And fed by fertile fungus fields

In Caves of Dark Abundance

The Men, they thought, would tire and leave

To go back to their families

They reckoned not the fire that burned

In Joile and Gaiden Shinji

Ten years their men sieged outer gate

And finally Smelter faltered

A decade more at second gate

Till Hammer then was broken

Ten years again were spent in toil

Till Temper fell asunder

Then wrathful Men at last went in

Orsinium to plunder

Golkarr prayed in Grudgement Hall

For Mauloch to defend him

But King Joile took him by the hair

And Gaiden Shinji slew him

Notes

While this poem may contain some truth, it also must contain a great deal of what may be referred to as "poetic license".

• The siege of Orsinium lasting thirty years is attested in multiple sources, thus can be assumed to be a relatively accurate number: however, the date of its conclusion, 1E 980, is also well-attested - and is seven years AFTER the Bretons had invaded the Redguards and been stopped at Bangkorai Pass in 1E 973, with great loss including the death of King Joile himself. Joile was therefore not present to enter the city of Orsinium itself at its final sacking. The Memory Stone of Makela Leki confirms that the Bretons had, indeed turned on their allies while the Siege of Orsinium was still ongoing, and confirms the date of King Joile's death, therefore King Joile's death predated the final sacking of Orsinium.
• In The Ashes of Our Fathers it is learned that Gaiden Shinji, also, was not present at the final sacking of Orsinium, due to his death in the duel with Baloth Bloodtusk - both having been slain by Breton archers while the duel was still ongoing. This event is generally accounted as coinciding with the fall of the second of Orsinium's three gates, in 1E 970.
• Therefore, if King Joile and Gaiden Shinji did indeed slay King Golkarr personally, it must have happened in 1E 970 - after Bloodtusk reinforced the city and was grudgingly welcomed by Golkarr despite being at odds with him but before the duel took place: and the city, lacking both Golkarr and Bloodtusk, must have held out without a leader for another ten years. Therefore Golkarr's death was *not* in the Temple as the poem claims, since the Temple would have been behind the still-intact third gate.
• Conversely, if Golkarr's death came after the breaking of Orsinium's last gate which marked the final fall of Orsinium in 1E 980, then he may indeed have fallen in the Temple, but Joile and Shinji were not his slayers: and indeed there would have been no Redguard witnesses, due to the Breton treachery of 1E 973 bringing an end to Hammerfell's cooperation with Bretony and fixing the border at Bangkorai Pass.
• Therefore, in either case, this poem can be regarded as at best "poetic license" and at worst propaganda, erasing Bloodtusk from history entirely and concealing the shameful Breton participation in Shinji's death, by falsely naming him - and Joile - as alive a full decade later, to be heroes at Orsinium's final sacking, when in fact both had been dead for some years.