The Citadel

The Archive of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Lore

Concordance

14. Magic
  • Magic had died away when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, but it is said that magic is still strong in the east in the lands by the Jade Sea and the Shadow (I: 197)
  • Stormsingers (I: 197. SSM: 1)
  • Spellsingers, warlocks, and aeromancers are said to still practice in Asshai (I: 197)
  • Shadowbinders and bloodmages work terrible sorceries in the black of the night (I: 197)
  • Some claim to still know the spells that must be used to rework Valyrian steel (I: 235. III: 359. SSM: 1)
  • The dosh khaleen read prophecies in the rising of smoke from the burning of dried grass (I: 411)
  • Spellsingers from the east use high ululating voices (I: 490)
  • Magicians (likely charlatans?) sell fertility charms in markets (I: 491)
  • The barren women of the khalasars are believed to have magic spells used to aid in healing (I: 560)
  • The Dothraki have a word, maegi, applied to women who they believe lay with demons and practice the blackest of sorceries, evil and soulless creatures who visit men in the dark of night and take their strength and life (I: 560)
  • The Lhazreen religion has the godswife sing songs and use spells most pleasing to their god, the Great Shepherd (I: 560)
  • The Jogos Nhai have moonsingers who know birthing magics (I: 561)
  • The Dothraki believe in magics involving grass, corn, and horses (I: 561)
  • Bloodmages from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai have dark, hard spells to save a man from death. Some might say death is cleaner than using such a spell (I: 593)
  • In bloodmagic, only death may pay for life (I: 594)
  • The life-saving spell of the bloodmages leaves the recipient mindless, unable to care for himself or recognize anyone (I: 634)
  • Blood is not enough to work bloodmagic; the spells must be known (I: 667)
  • A sorceress who cannot be poisoned, claiming that the fires of R'hllor cleanse and protect (II: 21)
  • A magical sword whose blade gleams strangely, going from red to yellow to blazing white. The air shimmers around it as if with heat, but the blade has no true heat (II: 350. III: 412, 413, 886)
  • A sorceress uses a shadow armed with a shadow-blade that allows it to assassinate someone in armor, cutting through steel as if it were cheesecloth (II: 367)
  • A man from the Free Cities makes a dog kills it master, despite that he raised it from birth. This might have been done by some sort of magic (II: 406)
  • Enchanted amethysts are supposed to protect a person from poison (II: 420)
  • It is believed that a dried corpse, covered with silvered leaves, have great power; especially if the deceased was a great sorcerer (II: 422)
  • There are firemages who can conjure ladders from the air that are made of fire and can stand forty feet high. The mage can climb up the ladder, each rung disappearing behind him, leaving nothing but silvery smoke. When he reaches the top, the ladder and he are both gone (II: 426)
  • There is a suggestion that magicians should be able to make fire from dragonglass (II: 426)
  • There is another suggestion that magic grows stronger now that there are dragons in the world again (II: 426)
  • The murderous shadows a sorceress might use seem to be taken from actual people, and may lead their owners to have troubled, nightmare filled dreams which show them what their shadows are doing (II: 449)
  • A sorceress might see the future in flames. Multiple possibilities stemming from different choices can be seen in this manner. They are said to be never wrong, but those seeing them may misinterpret what they see (II: 452. V: 58)
  • A sorceress might seem to shine with light in the darkness, and be pregnant with a shadow that can do her bidding; such as killing men. (II: 456)
  • A description of a sacrifice, in which a young boy's genitals are cut off and thrown into a fire as a sorcerer chants after the boy has been rendered powerless to move by a potion. The flames turn blue and a voice answers in some unknown language. It is possible that this is an outright lie or a pain-and-drug induced hallucination (II: 473)
  • A man (possibly a Faceless Man of Braavos) literally changes his face and other features. His long straight hair of red and white turns to a dark cap of curls, his cheeks grow fuller, his nose hooks, a scar appears on his cheek, and a gold tooth appears in his mouth. His manner of speaking changes as well (II: 505)
  • There are descriptions of rumored magical events in Qarth, some possibly having to do with warlocks (II: 638)
  • Shadows such as one sorceress conjures to do her bidding only live when given birth by light, a man's fires providing the energy. Repeated involvement in the birthing of such shadows makes the fires burn low, and one more such attempt may kill the man (III: 287)
  • Sex seems to be involved in the process of creating such shadows, as a sorceress offers a man pleasure such as he has never known, in return for making use of his life-fire (III: 287, 288)
  • It's said that R'hllor gives his priests the ability to see through falsehoods so that they may battle the servants of the Other (III: 288)
  • By looking into the flames, a sorceress can divine danger to herself (III: 289)
  • Shadowbinders may be able to project themselves to speak to others from a great distance (III: 310)
  • A man resurrected by R'hllor cuts himself to allow his blood run down the blade of his sword, and the blood suddenly catches fire (III: 388)
  • King's blood is said to have power, and sacrifice of a king's blood can be used to work great magic (III: 412, 415)
  • A sorceress can shows visions of distant or future events to others by having them look into fires (III: 414)
  • A red priest is somehow able to restore life to a man, not once but many times. There is a price, however, for the resurrected man loses more and more of his dearest memories each time. The priest credits R'hllor, giving the rite known as the last kiss (III: 443, 444)
  • Some red priests are trained to see things in fires, such as the past, the future, or things present but far away. It takes many years of training to see the shapes beyond the flames, and more years still to learn to tell the shapes of what will be from what may be or what was. Even then it comes hard (III: 489, 490, 706, 707)
  • The red priests learn various spells, but their effectiveness is unknown (II: 490)
  • The flames sorcerers and red priests see visions in never lie, but sometimes they are read wrongly (III: 498)
  • 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)
  • Prophecy by fire seems to work best when the visions have to do with danger to the seer (III: 707, 712)
  • A sorceress sets an eagle in flight aflame (III: 840, 841)
  • A priest of the Many-Faced God is able to create an illusion to make his face look like a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin clinging to its cheek and a worm wriggling in its empty eye socket. When touched, however, it melts away like a shadow (IV: 97-98)
  • It is alleged that magic might be used to thicken manticore venom, making it take longer to kill without making it less debilitating (IV: 110)
  • A maegi can taste a person's blood to tell their future (IV: 179)
  • A huge, twisted black horn taller than a man, bound with red gold and dark steel, incised with Valyrian glyphs that seem to glow when the horn is sounded. Those who sound it are burned, mouths blistered while wisps of smoke rise from it. It's claimed the such horns could command dragons (IV: 277, 279)
  • Years of education and sacrifice are required to learn how to make a proper glamor, such as the Faceless Men do (IV: 325)
  • It's said maegi can read a person's fortunes after tasting a drop of their blood (IV: 511, 540)
  • Bloodmagic is said to be the darkest of all magics, and possibly the most powerful (IV: 544)
  • All Valyrian magic was rooted in blood and fire. They could set dragonglass candles to burning with strange, unpleasantly-bright light. With the obsidian candles, they could see across vast distances, look into a man's mind, and speak with one another though they were half the world apart (IV: 682)
  • Gorghan of Old Ghis once compared prophecy to a treacherous woman, so sweet when pleasuring a man with her mouth, until she bites down on his member (IV: 682-683)
  • A dubious claim suggesting that the magic of looking into the flames allows one to speak with ancient dead kings and unborn children, and to see time to the very end of days (V: 58)
  • It is claimed that the flames never lie, but that priests being mortal may mistake "this must come" for "this may come" (V: 58)
  • Great lore raised the Wall, and great spells are locked beneath its ice (V: 59)
  • Valyrian steel must be made, as it cannot be found as a raw material (SSM: 1)