4.4. Songs, Stories, and Legends
- The Grey King of the Age of Heroes, who was supposed to have ruled the western lands and the sea itself, taking a mermaid as his wife (I: 687)
- It is said that every captain is a king aboard his own vessel, and so it is little to wonder at that the islands are named the land of the ten thousand kings (II: 123)
- The old red tales are still told around the driftwood fires and the smokey hearths all across the islands, even in the high stone halls of Pyke (II: 125)
- The Seastone Chair, a massive block of oily black stone carved in the shape of a great kraken, was reputedly found on the shore of Old Wyk by the First Men when they first came to the Iron Islands thousands of years ago (II: 287)
- Reaving songs tend to be loud and stormy, telling of dead heroes and deeds of wild valor (II: 398)
- Haereg's History of the Ironborn discusses Urron of Orkmont's massacre at a kingsmoot to establish House Greyiron's rule in the Iron Islands until the Andals came a thousand years later (IV: 165)
- Ironmen play fiddles to reaving songs such as "The Bloody Cup" and "Steel Rain" (IV: 260)
- It's said in Ironborn legend that Nagga was the first sea dragon, able to feed on leviathins and krakens and to drown whole islands in her wrath until the Grey King slew here and the Drowned God turned her bones to stone. The Grey King turned Nagga's ribs into the beams and pillars of his longhall, and her skull into his throne. In time the hall decayed, leaving only the ribs, and the throne of fangs was swallowed by the sea (IV: 268)
- The Grey King is said to have ruled for a thousand years and seven, taking a mermaid to wife, warring against the Storm God, and wearing robes of woven seaweed and tall, pale crown made from the teeth of Nagga (IV: 268)
- The Grey King's halls were said to have been warmed by the living fire of Nagga. Tapetries of silver seaweed adorned it, and the Grey King's warriors feasted at a table shaped like a starfish, seated on thrones carved of mother-of-pearl (IV: 268)
- The Ironborn believe that in ancient days, men were mightier and longer-lived (IV: 268)
Last revised January 04, 2009
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