Oakflesh

The first Mage Armor spell – raises your armor rating by 40 for 60 seconds.

Oakflesh toughens your skin like bark and raises your armor rating by 40 points for a minute. It’s the first of Skyrim’s Mage Armor spells, followed by Stoneflesh, Ironflesh and Ebonyflesh. With the Mage Armor perk the effect is doubled – as long as you’re not wearing any armor.

Tips

Alteration experience from flesh spells only counts when an enemy is nearby. Irileth casts Oakflesh herself during the dragon fight at the Western Watchtower.

Spell details

  • School: Alteration (Novice)
  • Effect: Improves the caster’s armor rating by 40 points for 60 seconds.
  • Base Magicka cost: 103
  • Casting: Fire and Forget, self
  • Spell tome: Spell Tome: Oakflesh – value 44 gold, ID 0009E2A8

More Alteration spells

Candlelight (Novice), Equilibrium (Novice), Magelight (Apprentice), Stoneflesh (Apprentice), Ash Shell (Adept), Detect Life (Adept), Ironflesh (Adept), Telekinesis (Adept), Transmute (Adept), Waterbreathing (Adept), Ash Rune (Expert), Detect Dead (Expert), Ebonyflesh (Expert), Paralyze (Expert), Dragonhide (Master), Mass Paralysis (Master).

Cost, effect and tome value read from the Skyrim game files (base values before skill, perks and gear).

Effect

Improves the caster’s armor rating by 40 points for 60 seconds.

Where to buy or find the tome

  • Lucan Valerius at the Riverwood Trader in Riverwood sells it, and so does Tolfdir at the College of Winterhold.
  • General goods merchants sometimes have it.
  • Shroud Hearth Barrow, in the room behind the Sapphire Dragon Claw door.

Lore notes

Quest reward from

Characters connected to it

Irileth is Jarl Balgruuf’s sharp-tongued Dunmer housecarl, who leads the guards against the dragon at the Western Watchtower.
Tolfdir is the kindly old Nord teacher at the College of Winterhold – a master of Alteration, spell vendor and your guide through the College questline.

Where to find it

Riverwood is the small lumber village where most Skyrim adventures really begin – blacksmith, inn, trader and the road up to Bleak Falls Barrow.

More spells from this school

Conjuration
Magicka 103
Reanimates a weak corpse to fight for you for 60 seconds.
Destruction
Magicka 343
A powerful lightning strike – 60 shock damage to Health, half that to Magicka.
Conjuration
Magicka 206
Summons a spectral Daedric bow and 100 arrows for 120 seconds.
Destruction
Magicka 138 per second
Master spell: a continuous beam of lightning – 75 damage per second.
Illusion
Magicka 67
Makes low-level creatures and people attack anything nearby.
Restoration
Magicka 25 per second
Heals another person 10 Health per second – but not undead, atronachs or machines.
Sources checked: Skyrim game files (Skyrim/Dawnguard/Dragonborn.esm + strings, read 2026-10-11); Elder Scrolls Fandom spell articles (tome locations)