1. Ancient History (pre-Targaryen)
- Some maesters of the Citadel claim the world is 40,000 years old, while others argue that it is 500,000 years old (IV: 7)
- The oldest histories in Westeros were written after the Andal's came to Westeros, because the First Men only used runes for carving on stone. Everything written about the Age of Heroes, the Dawn Age, and the Long Night originates from stories written down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters who question all these histories, noting the kings who seem to live for centuries and knights who fought a thousand years before there were knights (IV: 80)
Last revised January 31, 2007
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1.1. The Freehold of Valyria
- It is held that the ironsmiths worked with spells as well as hammer (I: 20)
- Valyria suffered a Doom (I: 20)
- The writing of Valyria was in glyphs (I: 27)
- Depictions of the Doom of Valyria exist (I: 29)
- Ayrmidon's Engines of War is quite rare, and written on scrolls (I: 72)
- The Free Cities speak a bastard version of Valyrian (I: 84)
- The Valyrians carved sphinxes with garnet eyes and black faces (I: 161)
- Valyria left many roads, as old as a thousand years, that run straight as arrows on the eastern continent (I: 193)
- Magic had died away when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer (I: 197)
- The topless towers of Valyria were reputedly very beautiful (I: 313)
- Old Valyria is now old ruins (I: 374)
- High Valyrian is still used by some (I: 603)
- The Targaryens were on Dragonstone for about two centuries after the Doom before invading Westeros (I: 692. SSC: 86)
- Dragonstone was the westernmost outpost of the Freehold of Valyria (II: 3)
- The Valyrians had great skill in shaping stone, although much of their knowledge is now lost (II: 3)
- The idols of the Seven on Dragonstone were carved from the masts of the ships that had carried the first Targaryens from Valyria (II: 109)
- The maesters say that Valyria was the last ember of magic, and even that is now destroyed (II: 325)
- The Valyrians commonly wed brother to sister (II: 364)
- Valyria produced items known as glass candles, at least as of a thousand years before the Doom. They are said to burn with a light that does not flicker and casts strange shadows only under the influence of magic, or perhaps during portentous times. They are made of obsidian, twisted in shape with razor-sharp edges, and can be green or black in color (II: 638. IV: 9)
- Dracarys means dragonfire in High Valyrian (III: 94)
- North of Valyria the Smoking Sea is demon-haunted (III: 98)
- The cities of Slaver's Bay are descended from Old Ghis, which was destroyed by the might of young Valyria 5,000 years ago. Its legions were shattered, its brick walls were pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls (III: 257)
- The gods of Ghis were destroyed with its fall, and so were its people. The inhabitants of the slaver cities are mongrels, and the Ghiscari tongue is largely forgotten; the slave cities speak the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they made of it (III: 257)
- Old Ghis ruled an empire while the Valyrians were still savage, or so it's said (III: 265)
- The Ghiscari lust for dragons. Five times had Old Ghis fought with Valyria when the world was young, and five times it lost because the Freehold of Valyria had dragons and the Empire had none (III: 307)
- Valar morghulis is a well-known phrase in High Valyrian, and means "All men must die" (III: 308, 748)
- Valyrian steel blades are scarce and costly, yet thousands of them remain in the world, perhaps some two hundred in the Seven Kingdoms alone (III: 359)
- It is often said that the old wizards of Valyria did not cut and chisel stone, but worked it with fire and magic as one might work clay (III: 603)
- There is a haunting ballad about two dying lovers amidst the Doom of Valyria, sung in High Valyrian (III: 676)
- Most people in Westeros, even among the nobility, do not know High Valyrian (III: 676)
- Obsidian was known as "frozen fire" in High Valyrian (III: 885)
- Valonqar is a world in High Valyrian (IV: 55)
- Braavos was discovered by the Moonsingers, who led refugees there to a place where the dragons of Valyria could not find them (IV: 89)
- Dragonlore was once accumulated in Valyria (SSC: 79)
Last revised January 31, 2007
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1.2. The Children of the Forest
- The children first worshiped the nameless gods which the First Men later adopted (I: 19)
- The children are said to have carved the faces in the weirwoods during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea (I: 19)
- The children have not been seen in thousands of years (I: 209)
- The Dawn Age was long before the time of the Andals and their new religion (I: 432)
- The children are said to have once called the nameless gods to send the hammer of the waters from the Children's Tower (I: 498)
- The children are said to have known much of dreams, knew the songs of trees and the speech of animals, could fly like birds and swim like fish. Their music was so beautiful it would make one weep to hear it (I: 616)
- The children used obsidian (also called dragonglass by smallfolk) arrowheads and blades. The Children worked no metal, wearing shirts of woven leaves and bark leg-bindings (I: 616. IV: 10)
- The children of the forest were people of the Dawn Age, the very first before kings and kingdoms. There were no cities, castles, or holdfasts, not even towns. (I: 617)
- The children of the forest are considered to be different from men, no larger than children at their tallest, dark and beautiful (I: 617)
- The children lived in the woods, in caves, crannogs, and secret tree towns (I: 617)
- Male and female would hunt together using bows made of weirwood and flying snares (I: 617)
- The gods of the children were those of forest, stream, and stone whose names were secret (I: 617)
- The wise men of the children were named greenseers. It is said they carved the faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods (I: 617. II: 323)
- No one knows how long the children reigned in the lands that would become the Seven Kingdoms, nor where they came from (I: 617)
- The children went to war with the First Men because of the destruction of the carved weirwoods (I: 617)
- The greenseers were supposed to have a used powerful magic to make the seas rise and sweep away land, shattering the Arm. It was too late, however (I: 617)
- The wars between the children and the First Men went on, in the favor of the larger, stronger, and more technologically advanced First Men, until the wise men of both races forged the Pact at the Isle of Faces (I: 617)
- The greenseers and wood dancers met with the First Men on the Isle of Faces (I: 617)
- The Pact gave the children the deep forests forever, and the First Men promised not to cut down any more weirwoods (I: 617)
- The sacred order of green men that tended the Isle of Faces was created after the making of the Pact, when all the weirwoods on the isle were carved with faces to witness the agreement (I: 617)
- The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between the children and the First Men (I: 617)
- The Pact ended the Dawn Age and began the Age of Heroes (I: 617)
- The Andals burned out all the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, and slew the children when they found them (I: 618)
- Some of the children of the forest reputedly had the greensight and that these wise men were the greenseers (II: 323)
- Maesters believe that the greensight was not magic, simply another kind of knowledge. They believe that their wisdom had something to do with the faces in the trees (II: 323)
- The First Men believed that the greenseers of the children of the forest could see through the eyes of the carved weirwoods, which is why they cut down the trees when they warred upon them (II: 323)
- Supposedly, the greenseers had power over the beasts of the wood, the birds in the trees, and even fish (II: 323)
- The maesters believe that the children of the forest are now forgotten, just as their lore is (II: 325)
- Histories say the crannogmen grew close to the children of the forest when the greenseers tried to bring the waters down upon the Neck (II: 534-535)
- All greenseers had the greensight and were wargs as well, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies, swims, or crawls. They could also see through the eyes of the weirwoods and see the truth that lies beneath the world (III: 107)
- High Heart is a huge hill a day's ride from Sallydance in the Riverlands. About its top stand the stumps of thirty-one once-mighty weirwoods, so wide around that a child could use one for a bed (III: 249)
- High Heart was sacred to the children of the forest, and their magic is said to linger, protecting anyone who sleeps there from harm (III: 249)
- The smallfolk shun High Heart, saying it was haunted by ghosts of the children who had died there when the Andal king Erreg the Kingslayer had cut down the grove (III: 249)
- The green men, the guardians of the Isle of Faces, are said to have dark green skin and leaves instead of hair, and sometimes they have antlers as well (III: 283)
- The green men are said to ride on elks (III: 636)
- It is recorded that the children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch a hundred daggers of dragonglass each year during the Age of Heroes (IV: 80)
Last revised January 31, 2007
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1.3. The First Men
- The First Men believed that a man who passes sentence should swing the blade. (I: 14)
- The barrows of the First Men are spread throughout the North (I: 93)
- The First Men used runes, which they carved on rocks and into metal, but these are not sufficient to illuminate their history (I: 246. IV: 80)
- Some 12,000 years ago the First Men arrived from the east by crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leather shields and they rode horses (I: 617)
- No horse had ever been seen on the continent of Westeros before the coming of the First Men (I: 617)
- As the First Men built farms and holdfasts, they cut down the carved weirwoods and burned them. The children went to war because of this (I: 617)
- The wars between the children and the First Men went on, in the favor of the larger, stronger, and more technologically advanced First Men, until the wise men of both races forged the Pact at the Isle of Faces (I: 617)
- The Pact gave the coasts, high plains, meadows, mountains, and bogs to the First Men. In turn, they gave the children the forests and promised to cut down no more weirwoods (I: 617)
- The Pact began 4,000 years of friendship between the children and the First Men. Eventually the First Men put aside the old gods they brought with them from east across the sea, and took up those of the children of the forest (I: 617)
- The Pact ended the Dawn Age and began the Age of Heroes (I: 617)
- The Pact endured through the Age of Heroes, the Long Night, and the birth of the Seven Kingdoms. Yet centuries later other peoples began to arrive in the land (I: 618)
- The wars between the First Men and the Andals lasted hundreds of years, but eventually the six southron realms fell to them. Only the Kings of Winter remained in the North (I: 618)
- The First Men built the Wall (I: 654)
- The First Men believed that the greenseers of the children of the forest could see through the eyes of the carved weirwoods, which is why they cut down the trees when they warred upon them (II: 323)
- The Fist of the First Men is a hill beyond the Wall that juts above a dense tangle of forest. Its windswept heights are visible from miles away. It is an ancient ringfort used by the First Men in the Dawn Age (II: 371)
- For some reason, a direwolf warg refuses to enter the enclosure of the Fist, but domesticated animals such as a raven and horses don't object (but later caged ravens show disquiet) (II: 372, 374)
- Syggerik means "deceiver" in the language of the First Men, which the giants still speak (II: 544)
- Magnar means lord in the Old Tongue (III: 80)
- The laws of hospitality are as old as the First Men. The guest right protects a guest who has eaten his host's food from harm, at least for the length of the stay (III: 83)
- The Old Tongue is a harsh, clanging language (III: 167)
- There are songs in the Old Tongue among the wildlings, and they make for strange and wild music (III: 172)
- The green men, the guardians of the Isle of Faces, are said to have dark green skin and leaves instead of hair, and sometimes they have antlers as well (III: 283)
- Tristifer, the Fourth of his Name, King of the Rivers and the Hills, ruled from the Trident to the Neck thousands of years before Jenny of Oldstones and her prince, in the days when the kingdoms of the First Men were falling one after the other before the Andals. He was called the Hammer of Justice, and the singers say that he fought a hundred battles and won nine-and-ninety. When he raised his castle, now a ruin known only as Oldstones, it was the strongest in Westeros (III: 520)
- Tristifer IV was killed in his hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him. His son, Tristifer V, was not his equal, and soon the realm was lost, and the castle, and then the line. With Tristifer V died the First Men line of House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a thousand years before the Andals came (III: 520. SSC: 22)
- The most proper way of receiving the guest right is to eat bread and salt (III: 556, 562)
- Legend says that King Sherrit called down his curse on the Andals at the Nightfort on the Wall (III: 624)
- The Fingers were one of the places where the Andals first landed, to wrest the Vale from the First Men (III: 770)
- In ancient days, wrongful deaths could be addressed by the paying of a blood price, and in the Age of Heroes a man's life might be reckoned at being worth no more than a sack of silver (TSS: 104, 126)
- Houses descended of the First Men tend to have short, simple, descriptive names (EHC)
Last revised January 31, 2007
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1.4. The Andals
- The Andals brought the Seven with them from across the narrow sea (I: 432)
- When the Andals crossed the narrow sea and swept away the kingdoms of the First Men, the sons of fallen kings held to their vows in the Night's Watch (I: 553)
- The Andals were the first new invaders after the First Men had settled their peace with the Children and lived in harmony with them for 4,000 years. They were tall and fair-haired warriors who carried steel weapons and the seven-pointed star of the new gods painted on their bodies. This was at least 6,000 years ago (I: 361, 617-618)
- The wars between the First Men and the Andals lasted hundreds of years, but eventually the six southron realms fell to them. Only the Kings of Winter remained in the North (I: 618)
- The Andals burned out all the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, and slew the children when they found them (I: 618)
- The Andals came some 4,000 years ago to the Iron Islands (I: 688. II: 137)
- The trial of seven is seldom used, coming across with the Andals and their seven gods. The Andals believed that if seven champions fought on each side, the gods thus honored would be more likely to see justice done. If a man cannot find six others to stand with him, then he is obviously guilty (THK: 509)
- If the accused is killed in a trial of seven, it is believed that the gods have judged him guilty and the contest then ends. If his accusers are slain or withdraw their accusations, the contest ends and he is decreed innocent. Otherwise, all seven of one side must die or yield for the trial to end (THK: 521)
- The smallfolk shun High Heart, saying it was haunted by ghosts of the children who had died there when the Andal king Erreg the Kingslayer had cut down the grove (III: 249)
- Tristifer, the Fourth of his Name, King of the Rivers and the Hills, ruled from the Trident to the Neck thousands of years before Jenny of Oldstones and her prince, in the days when the kingdoms of the First Men were falling one after the other before the Andals. He was called the Hammer of Justice, and the singers say that he fought a hundred battles and won nine-and-ninety. When he raised his castle, now a ruin known only as Oldstones, it was the strongest in Westeros (III: 520)
- Tristifer IV was killed in his hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him. His son, Tristifer V, was not his equal, and soon the realm was lost, and the castle, and then the line. With Tristifer V died House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a thousand years before the Andals came (III: 520)
- Legend says that it was at the Nightfort where the Rat Cook served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie (III: 624)
- The legend has it that the Rat Cook had cooked the son of the Andal king in a big pie with onions, carrots, mushrooms, lots of pepper and salt, a rasher of bacon, and a dark red Dornish wine. Then he served him to his father, who praised the taste and had a second slice. Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. He roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated. The moral of the story is that the gods did not curse him for his murder or for his serving the Andal king his son in a pie, for a man has a right to vengeance, but he was cursed for slaying a guest beneath his roof and that the gods cannot forgive (III: 631)
- The Fingers were one of the places where the Andals first landed, to wrest the Vale from the First Men (III: 770)
- In ancient days, wrongful deaths could be addressed by the paying of a blood price, and in the Age of Heroes a man's life might be reckoned at being worth no more than a sack of silver (TSS: 104, 126)
- When the Andals first invaded Westeros, some of their warriors had the seven-pointed star of the Faith carved into their flesh (IV: 63)
- The oldest histories in Westeros were written after the Andal's came to Westeros, because the First Men only used runes for carving on stone. Everything written about the Age of Heroes, the Dawn Age, and the Long Night originates from stories written down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters who question all these histories, noting the kings who seem to live for centuries and knights who fought a thousand years before there were knights (IV: 80)
- There exists an ancient melee format which uses seven teams (SSC: 14)
Last revised January 31, 2007
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1.5. The Rhoynar
- Nymeria was a warrior queen who led her people across the narrow sea 1,000 years ago (I: 59. II: 233)
- A story (probably false) has it that Nymeria led women who fled from their cities on the Rhoyne river (I: 203. EHC)
- Nymeria was the warrior queen of the Rhoyne who brought ten thousand ships to land in Dorne, taking Mors Martell as her husband and aiding him in vanquishing all rivals for the rule of Dorne (I: 690)
- The Rhoynar influence led to the rulers of Dorne to style themselves "Prince" rather than "King" (I: 690)
- Rhoynar law also led to lands and titles being passed to the eldest child, regardless of gender (I: 690)
- It is said that the Dornishmen have warred against the Reach and Storm's End for a thousand years, which is likely dating from the unification of Dorne under Mors Martell and Nymeria (II: 233)
- Beldecar's History of the Rhoynish Wars makes mention of elephants (III: 136)
- There are three sorts of Dornishmen, as King Daeron I had observed. There are salty Dornishmen who live along the coasts, lithe and dark with smooth olive skin and long black hair; sandy Dornishmen who live in the deserts and the long river valleys, who are even darker, faces burned brown by the hot Dornish sun; and stony Dornishmen who live in the passes and heights of the Red Mountains, the biggest and fairest, sons of the Andals and the First Men, brown-haired or blond with faces that freckled or burned in the sun (III: 430)
- Rhoynish influence in Dornish customs gives a special status to mistresses, or paramours as they name them, that places them above mistresses in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms but beneath wives (III: 431. SFC)
- Rhoynish customs impacted Dorne in a number of ways, especially in the rights of women, but it did not extend to women taking active part in battles (SSC: 52)
- The Rhoynar brought various old gods with them, but they have largely disappeared and been replaced by the Faith of the Seven (EHC)
- The Martells name themselves prince or princess after the Rhoynar custom. The Rhoynar rulers of the various cities along the Rhoyne river followed the same convention (EHC)
- There is a stigma attached to homosexuality everywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, save in Dorne (SFC)
Last revised January 31, 2007
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