10 Skyrim Easter Eggs, Secrets & References You Totally Missed

6. Lord Of The Rings/Skyrim Crossover Episode

skyrim shadowmere
Bethesda

There are plenty of Lord of The Rings references in Skyrim from Whiterun’s giant dying tree to certain lines that are direct references to quotes from the fantasy classic, but this one is my favourite.

Sliding into the category of direct references to quotes, I included this one so I could talk about the goodest equine boy in the land, Shadowmere. Now, I’m not a horse girl, but Shadowmere, the horse originally owned by Lucien Lachance who you get to own after completing the Dark Brotherhood request The Cure for Madness, is the best horse around.

Clearly Lucien Lachane thought so too, as if you travel with him in his Spectral Assassin form he sometimes says “Shadowmere my old and dear friend”. If you didn’t twig yet, Gandalf says uses the same phrase to Shadowfax in Lord of the Rings.

When carrying Lucien around in this form he also sometimes says “There is a disturbance in the void”, which is pretty darn close to a certain space opera franchise with “disturbances in the force”.

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Jess has been a journalist and content creator in the games industry for over 15 years and has been WhatCulture's resident Australian import and sorry cop since 2020, upping the quotient of swearing and apologising in WhatCulture Gaming's annual blooper videos considerably. She previously worked at GameSpot for 10 years, most notably hosting GameSpot News in addition to E3 live shows, and PAX panels. She regularly livestreams a variety of games on her 'jessmcdonell' YouTube and Twitch channels and hosts the 'Do It On The Day' podcast. She has won awards for her news and feature work in gaming as well as an accolade for her comedic writing (likely an admin error). She can be found on X at @jessmcdonell and Instagram at @jessicamcdonell sharing her current videogame fixations, industry insights, and videos of her cat, Karma.