What do we know about the Elder Scrolls?

[Unionhack]

So I've been looking around for information about the Elder Scrolls themselves (As in, the magical pieces of paper), but I really have not found very much about them, other than they basically tell the future, and that reading them too much will make you blind. I'm not really understanding how

Spoiler:

The Gray Fox uses the scrolls to unmask himself; really, that entire part of the questline was really confusing.

, and I kind of just don't get the function of the scrolls themselves at all.

So, does anyone have any additional info on them? It'd be greatly appreciated, I'm quite curious! XD

[Farlace]

Well, they are supposed to be a mystery, hence the "feeling" of TES. I think Skyrim's Alduin Prophecy is part of the scrolls. Here is what I found on the UESP page:

Spoiler:

The Elder Scrolls are Aedric Prophecies of unknown origin and quantity, being simultaneously archives of both historic and future events.
Any person gifted with prescient powers is able to interpret the contents of the Elder Scrolls with practice. The information revealed about the future is never absolute. Once an event foretold within the scrolls is carried out in the world it becomes fixed within them.

Such insight into the inner fabric of reality comes at a price, however, as each new foretelling and interpretation strikes the reader with blindness for a greater period of time, while simultaneously granting them a broader view of the scroll's contents. Ultimately, the reader, having engaged in frequent acts of prophecy, is left bereft of their vision, forever after removed of their right to read the scrolls. By time-honored tradition only those of The Cult of the Ancestor Moth may read from the scrolls, the younger members caring for the elder as they gradually lose their sight for eternity.

The prophecies of the Elder Scrolls and the Heroes are interdependent; one cannot exist without the other.

Sources

Lost Histories of Tamriel
Pension of the Ancestor Moth
Divining the Elder Scolls

And here is the picture, though I am sure you have seen it:

Spoiler:

As for the

Spoiler:

Gray Fox

part, that is still confusing to me as well

[Trelares]

As they are of aedric origin an somehow woven into the fabric of time itself I would say they can be used with some kind of ritual to break the curse of (a daedric prince) which lies on the gray fox.

[Dark Spark]

The zany idea that I use to explain the Elder Scrolls is the notion that the player's journal happens to be one.

Whatever happens to you in the world, it gets written into the Elder Scroll.
Conversely, whatever you do to the Elder Scroll— it happens in the world.

You get a quest from someone, and words of that mission get inscribed onto the Elder Scroll— it records history as it happens.

However, you can't actually carry 10 suits of armor and 25 various weapons in your backpack. You're only wearing one outfit at the moment, and carrying one weapon at any time. But what the Elder Scroll has recorded is that you've collected all those other items in the past and have not sold them yet. When the need arises, you "rewrite" the Elder Scroll in order to change what you're wearing and what weapon you're holding at any given moment. Need to change out of that Blue Velvet Outfit and into your Blades armor? Changing what is written in your personal scroll changes reality at that moment— the Elder Scroll "predicts" future events by your will.

[OblivionDuruza]

My interpretation of the Scrolls, is that they are the prophecies that define the games. "Each event is preceded by Prophecy. But without the hero, there is no Event." The actions of the Hero (the PC) set the Scrolls in stone, but before then, they are loose and fluid, an insight into the future, but not a clear one (because the Elder Scrolls games are built upon the notions of freedom and choice).

Spoiler:

As for the Grey Fox, "Whoever wears Nocturnal's cowl shall have his name stricken from history" "You will find that history has been altered tonight. Such is the power of Nocturnal's curse that lifting it can alter time itself." I am of the mind that the power of an Elder Scroll was needed to undo the curse, because it dealt with time and history itself.