3.2.2. Ancestors and History
- The first lords of Winterfell had been hard men (I: 34)
- There was a King of the North named Jon Stark who drove out sea raiders from the east and built the castle at White Harbor (I: 613)
- The son of Jon Stark, Rickard Stark, took the Neck from the Marsh King and married his daughter (I: 613)
- King Theon Stark was named the 'Hungry Wolf' because he was constantly at war (I: 613)
- Brandon the Shipwright loved the sea. His tomb is empty, as he tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and never returned. He never succeeded in his crossing (I: 613. SSM: 1)
- His son Brandon the Burner was named so for torching all of his father's ships in grief (I: 613)
- King Rodrik Stark won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts, or so it's said (I: 613)
- The last King of the North, who bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror, was Torrhen Stark (I: 613)
- Cregan Stark once fought Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, who named him the finest swordsman he had ever faced (I: 613)
- The Starks trace their ancestry from Brandon the Builder (I: 678)
- A book kept in Castle Black on the Wall, written by a ranger named Redwyn in the time of King Dorren Stark, which tells of fighting giants and trading with the Children of the Forest (II: 70)
- The crown of the Kings of Winter had been yielded up to Aegon the Conqueror when Torrhen Stark bent the knee. What became of the crown no one knew. It was an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought as longswords (II: 79)
- The North has had no strength at sea for hundreds of years, ever since Brandon the Burner put his father's ships to the torch (II: 183)
- Winterfell has hosted harvest festivities for centuries (II: 237)
- It has been hundreds and thousands of years since the crannogmen swore their oaths of fealty to the Starks (II: 241)
- All the wildling hosts that have attacked southwards have broken their strength on the Wall or by the power of Winterfell beyond (II: 276)
- A number of Starks had been slain, flayed, and worn as cloaks in the past before the Boltons had bent the knee (II: 530)
- The Boltons bent the knee to Winterfell a thousand years ago (II: 530)
- Bael the Bard lived in the time of a Lord Brandon Stark (known to the wildlings as Brandon the Daughterless), who had no other children save a daughter. The story has it that Bael seduced the daughter, who gave birth to a bastard son who eventually inherited Winterfell (II: 544-545)
- The stories say that Bael was slain by his bastard son, the young Lord Stark, because he refused to fight his own blood. Because of the kinslaying, the Starks were cursed; the story goes that Lord Stark's mother killed herself when she saw Bael's head upon Lord Stark's spear, and Lord Stark himself did not long outlive her when one of the Bolton lords skinned him (II: 545)
- The Starks have been a noble, unbroken line for some 8,000 years (II: 552)
- There's a listing of the lords of Winterfell in their tombs that seems to be roughly chronological, starting from Lord Rickard Stark and going back. It goes: Lord Rickard Stark, Lord Edwyle, Lord Willam and his brother Artos the Implacable, Lord Donner, Lord Beron, Lord Rodwell, one-eyed Lord Jonnel, Lord Barth, Lord Brandon, and Lord Cregan who fought Aemon the Dragonknight (II: 702)
- There are more Kings of North mentioned (in no clear ordering, although it seems it's going from newer to older): Edwyn the Spring King, Jorah and Jonos, Brandon the Bad, Walton the Moon King, Edderion the Bridegroom, Eyron, Benjen the Sweet and Benjen the Bitter, and King Edrick Snowbeard. Some of them had done terrible things, but their tales are known (II: 703)
- It's said that Torrhen, the King Who Knelt, offered his submission to Aegon the Conqueror on the south bank of the Red Fork in the riverlands, at the place where the river bends to flow southeastwards (III: 121)
- The Karstarks trace their descent to Karlon Stark, a younger son of Winterfell who had put down a rebel lord a thousand years ago, and been granted lands for his valor. The castle he built had been named Karl's Hold, but over the centuries it became Karhold and the Karhold Starks became the Karstarks (III: 231, 232)
- Lord Eddard's maternal grandmother was a Flint of the mountains. She died before he was born (III: 275, 276)
- When Gendel and Gorne, the brother Kings-beyond-the-Wall, managed to pass the Wall some 3,000 years ago, they were met by the force of the King in the North. He was slain by Gorne, but his son took up his crown and banner again and then cut down Gorne (III: 300)
- The New Gift belongs to the Night's Watch, as does Brandon's Gift which lies north of it. It's said that Brandon the Builder gave all the land south of the Wall to the black brothers, to a distance of twenty-five leagues, for their sustenance and support, but some maesters say that it was some other Brandon, not the Builder (III: 452, 453)
- In legend, Brandon the Builder was said to have had the help of giants in raising the Wall (III: 461)
- When King Jaehaerys the Concilliator came to Winterfell in the first years of his reign, he brought his queen, six dragons, and half his court. He had matters to discuss with his Warden of the North, however, and Queen Alysanne grew bored and took her dragon Silverwing northwards for a time. (III: 468)
- Lord Rickard had no siblings, but his father had a sister who married a younger son of Lord Raymar Royce, of the junior branch. They had three daughters, all of whom wed Vale lordlings, a Waynwood and a Corbray among them, and perhaps a Templeton (III: 520, 521)
- 600 years ago, the commanders of the Night's Watch castles of Snowgate and the Nightfort went to war against one another and joined forces to murder their Lord Commander when he tried to stop them. The Stark in Winterfell had to take a hand, and their heads (III: 612)
- It's said that the Stark in Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings joined forces against the Night's King, the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. He was defeated and his name and all records of him were destroyed (III: 629, 630)
- Some say the Night's King was a Bolton, or a Magnar out of Skagos, others say he was an Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Others still say he was a Woodfoot, who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came, but others still say he was a Stark who was brother to the man who brought him down (III: 630)
- Tales have it that the heads of giants have been mounted on the walls of Winterfell in the past (III: 906)
- A hundred years ago, Skagos rose in a rebellion that lasted years. Before it was put down, a Lord of Winterfell and hundreds of his swords were killed (IV: 220)
- Four hundred years before the Conquest, Osric Stark was elected Lord Commander at the age of ten, and served for sixty years. He is one of four Lord Commanders known to have been elected younger than sixteen. All of them were sons, brothers, or bastards of the Kings of the North (IV: 79-80)
- The reaving of the ironborn under Lord Dagon led Beron Stark to begin gathering swords so he could drive the ironmen from his shores (TMK: 664)
- As a youth, Eddard Stark would have occasionally visited the North or travelled outside of the Vale with Jon Arryn. When he reached his majority, his stays in the North were more frequent, but he would have visited the Vale often as it had become a second home to him, and Jon Arryn a second father (SSM: 1)
- Benjen Stark joined the Night's Watch shortly after Lord Eddard had returned to Winterfell and Lady Catelyn had taken up residence with the infant Robb (SSM: 1)
- There may be offshoots and branches of the Stark family in the North, most likely in White Harbor and Barrowton (SSM: 1)
- Roughly around 210, House Stark was in a difficult situation, with the current lord of the house slowly succumbing to wounds he received fighting the ironborn. Lady Stark and four Stark widows struggled over who would succeed him; these women would be known as the She-Wolves. There were a number of potential heirs, with some ten Stark children about (SSM: 1, 2, 3)
Last revised September 04, 2012
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