The Interpreted Soul Content . An initiate disturbed my meditations last night , wide - eyed and distraught . “ Abbot , ” cried he , “ I have endured the most horrible dream . I was tending to the elders in their cells , bringing them food and water , listening to their soothing songs . The moths ’ gentle wings fluttered , tranquil as always , when suddenly I was confronted by hideous apparitions ! Incorporeal dead roamed the halls , and it appeared to me as if the moths were feeding on them — sucking wisps of ghostly material , perhaps their very souls , into hungry maws ! Please , Abbot , tell me this is madness , that this is not so ! ” It is not unusual for initiates of our Order to suffer unsettling dreams , especially as they learn more of the nature of our sacred charges , the Elder Scrolls , and the ancestors that grant us the wisdom to approach their infinite mysteries . Though much of the knowledge gained through readings of the Scrolls must be experienced personally to truly comprehend it , and despite being quite exhausted from my daily rigors , I was able to help him set aside his fears about our Order ’ s relationship with mortal souls and the moths that preserve fragments of their erudition from beyond mortality . Not for us are the brutal methods of the conjurer or necromancer , tearing the soul from its vessel , constraining it and forcibly redirecting its energies with no regard for its journey or contents . No , the interplay of moth and ancestor soul is delicate and as natural as the canticle trees themselves , and we are patient and conscientious observers hoping to make sense of the cosmic tapestry by glimpsing its threads . It is through service to the moths and the ancestors that we gain guidance , not through the clumsy coercion of will without understanding the consequences . The soul , I told him , has much in common with the moth — they are a symbolic pair . Though it is typical to think of it as the Aedric essence at the core of every mortal , I advised him to consider the soul in another light , scaled like the wings of the moth , and to imagine it comprised of vessels filled through the events of mortal existence . On release from life on Nirn , it is our belief that a kind of dissipation begins , and it is then that the moths learn the song of a soul ’ s fjyrons , which are shepherded under our care and protected generation after generation . The fjyrons themselves must retain a connection to the grand fabric of creation , to the scattered soul - remnants in all their destinations . Through this link and with patient care , we receive guidance from beyond the present or past and the known world , where time is irrelevant . The moths do not capture or devour the souls of the ancestors , but only repeat to us what they ’ ve filtered , like a chorus repeating the verses of a grand song . I could tell that , though the full dawn of understanding had not broken for him yet , his wild fears about the ancestor moths were somewhat allayed . I was pleased to assist him in his journey , and told him he would have ample time to ponder the nature of souls as he scrubbed the silkroom floors for the next week — penance for intruding on my nightly reverie .