Skyrim player encounters would-be chicken wizard en route to College of Winterhold

When they’re not destroying all of Nazeem’s furniture, dressing up as a spriggan or trying to convince Ulfric Stormcloak and General Tullius to get along, Skyrim’s Dragonborn can often be found doing a spot of travelling.

After all, when you’ve got quests to complete, cities to explore and possibly a cursed entity to try and escape, staying on the move makes a lot of sense.

However, sometimes following this philosophy can result in a few rather unusual encounters with NPCs and animals who thought they could safely deviate from their programming and head off on a quest without you noticing, as one player has recently found out in a rather amusing fashion.

Have you ever stumbled across a chicken on a mission in Skyrim?

The thread containing this strange incident on the Skyrim subreddit began with a post from the aforementioned player, user tennerahAndy, who shared an image of their character posing with a chicken on the walkway to the College of Winterhold, captioning it: “Just a regular chicken wanting to learn magic. You go, little Chicken Wizard. If you can dream it, you can do it, you plucky clucker.”

A number of their fellow players were quick to speculate as to which schools of magic the bewitching bird might be interested in learning about, with user le_Grand_Archivist nominating: “D'egg-struction” and Green-Pen-Gamer instantly regretting their suggestion of: “Cock-juration?”

A few speculated how the power-hungry poultry might have passed the test proposed to would-be recruits by Faralda, with user Skelter89 wondering if it might have shot a fireball egg out of itself.

Others simply offered words of encouragement for the chicken, with user ReasonableHat600 saying: “I believe in the little fella.” and ThatMrDuck1400 declaring: “That chicken will be the most powerful mage in all of Skyrim.”

Meanwhile, user PoissonsRevenge outlined a slightly different theory behind the chicken’s random appearance outside of the college, proposing: “I'd like to think it was a student who got drunk and (mucked) up an alteration spell.”

Regardless of how many of your Skyrim playthroughs have been irreversibly altered by a spell going horrifically awry, make sure to follow us for more updates on The Elder Scrolls 6 and the wacky world of Skyrim modding.