Witches and wizards don't like me

Started Skyrim today, and it's very much like Oblivion, just with nicer graphics and an odd interface.

IT starts out that your a prisoner (like they all do) and just when you're about to be excited, a dragon shows up and touches the town, allowing you to escape. Seems that there is some kind of rebellion going on between the ruling imperials and some one who claims to control dragons. I haven't found out much about the plot yet since as soon as the tutorial was over I literally headed for the hills.

My first encounter was with an old woman living in a hut. She basically says "oh don't mind me", so I check the hut and find there is a basement. Turns out the basement is full of witchcraft stuff, so leaving everything as it is I go back to talk to the witch. She didn't like me going down there and before I can even ask for some lessons in witchcraft, she starts attacking me. After she's dead I steal all her stuff out of spite, and come across 2 more witches dueling in the woods. The are not any more friendly and after killing them I got a spiffy rod that casts lightning.

I continued south until I found a cave that cut through the mountain. The cave was occupied by a necromancer who was also not friendly. After several tries I killed him and took all his stuff too. On the other side of the cave was a rocky flat land with giants and herds of mammoths, so I called it a night before one of them could step on me.