14.1. Magic in Westeros
- Daeron Targaryen, son of Prince Maekar, had dreams that came true (THK: 513)
- There are hedge wizards who claim to be able to foretell how the seasons will come (II: 189)
- A three-eyed crow might be a magical representation of a person skilled in magic of some sort (II: 320-321)
- A magician may find it easiest to contact a person with magical potential when they are near death (II: 320)
- The "third eye" is a metaphor for the ability to use magic in some way. When it is "open" a person can see beyond the normal: whether a person's heart is good or bad, the acorn an ancient tree grew from and the stump it will one day become, or gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall (II: 321)
- The third eye might be closed, but in sleep it may sometimes flutter open, as it does to allow a warg to have wolf dreams (II: 383)
- Storm's End is ancient, its stones woven with spells so that no magic can pass. The spells are forgotten, but still In place (II: 455)
- There is an example of two wargs speaking in dreams to each other, despite being removed by hundreds of leagues. It's possible that this happens only because one of them appears to be even more than a warg (yet both of them have the "three eyes") (II: 560)
- An strange old dwarf woman exhibits prophetic dreams (III: 249, 250, 491)
- A magic horn reputedly able to summon krakens from the deep (III: 408, 603)
- There are women said to be woods witches among the wildlings, and sometimes their sons and daughters are said to have gifts for foretelling the weather (III: 466)
- The old gods are said to still linger at High Heart, keeping a red priest from looking into his flames and seeing visions (III: 492)
- A cloud of ravens descends upon a group of wights, seemingly commanded by a man (III: 536. V: 61-62)
- There is a hidden gate as old as the Wall at the Nightfort, called the Black Gate, which only a man of the Night's Watch who has said his vows can open. It is set deep in a wall of the well at the center of the kitchens and is made of white weirwood with a face on it. A glow seems to come from the wood, like milk and moonlight, but very faintly. The face is old and pale, wrinkled and shrunken, its mouth and eyes closed and its cheeks sunken, its brow withered, and its chin sagging. (III: 635, 638)
- The Wall is more than just ice and stone. There are old spells woven into it, strong enough to keep creatures of a magical nature from passing it (III: 636)
- When someone approaches the Black Gate, the eyes open. They are white and blind, and then door asks, "Who are you?" A man of the Night Watch must repeat a part of his vows. The door will open then, saying, "Then pass", and its lips will open wider and wider still until nothing remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles (III: 638)
- Water on the upper lip of the gate is strangely warm and salty as a tear (III: 638)
- The Horn of Winter is huge and black, eight feet along its curve and so wide at the mouth that a man's arm could fit to the elbow. It is banded with old dark gold, more brown than yellow, and graven with runes (III: 836)
- The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it (III: 836)
- Its said woods witches are harmless, knowing no magic but perhaps having knowledge of little herb-craft and some midwifery (IV: 544)
- A man who does not eat, sleep, breath, or drink, but who is afraid of fire. He reveals he is dead, brought to life by magic. His inability to cross the Wall is due to the magic in the Wall itself preventing it (V: 63, 69-70)
Last revised February 09, 2016
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14.1.1. The Greensight
- The crannogmen say a person has the greensight if they dream prophetic dreams which always come true (moss-green eyes may come with it) (II: 320)
- A person with the greensight sometimes dreams as other people, but the green dreams are different (II: 320)
- A green dream takes the form of metaphor; for instance, a winged creature bound with grey stone chains to the earth might represent a person who has that creature as an emblem who is chained by preconceptions from achieving his full potential (II: 320)
- A person with the greensight can sense when a person is a warg (II: 320)
- A person with the greensight might dream of his own death (II: 322)
- Some of the children of the forest reputedly had the greensight. Their wise men were called 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 say that no living man has the greensight (II: 325)
- Having the greensight is not enough to be a greenseer. The greenseers were wargs as well, and could see through the eyes of the weirwoods and see the truth that lies beneath the world (III: 107)
Last revised February 28, 2007
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14.1.2. Wargs and Skinchangers
- When a warg dreams of his wolf, he shares its body and can be felt by someone with the greensight (II: 321)
- Even when waking, a warg can be in his wolf (II: 321)
- When a warg becomes angry or afraid, the wolf can sense it (II: 322)
- When in a warg dream, a person remembers the actions of his wolf as his own as well (II: 322)
- Part of a warg is his wolf, and vice versa (II: 322)
- There is an apparent belief that silver weapons are needed to kill wargs (II: 339)
- Wargs are also called demons, shapechangers, and beastlings (II: 383)
- Beastlings and shapechangers are always evil in common stories (II: 383)
- The third eye might be closed, but in sleep it may sometimes flutter open, as it does to allow a warg to have wolf dreams (II: 383)
- There is an example of two wargs speaking in dreams to each other, despite being removed by hundreds of leagues. It's possible that this happens only because one of them appears to be even more than a warg (yet both of them have the "three eyes") (II: 560)
- Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2)
- After a bonders death, a bond-animal is still unnatural and can seek revenge for its loss (II: 697)
- A warg in the wolf dream can exact some measure of control over what his bond-animal does (II: 700)
- The sleep during a wolf dream is unnatural, and can last for days as the warg begins to become more and more used to sharing a wolf's thoughts (II: 701)
- A warg can reach out and actually have double vision; what he sees and what his wolf sees as well (II: 702)
- Some wargs seem able to sense members of their animal's family by some magical sense, perhaps related to the "third eye" or the unusual nature of the animal and its kindred (III: 101)
- Wargs must be trained to be able to control their animal and themselves when they are in its skin. It is very easy to give in to it's instincts and impulses (III: 103)
- A warg cannot live on what his beast consumes (III: 104)
- A warg can bend a beast to his will, or the beast bend the warg's will to his (III: 107)
- All greenseers were wargs as well, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies, swims, or crawls (III: 107)
- A skinchanger can have many beasts to him, and of different sorts. One man is bonded with a huge snow bear, three wolves, a shadowcat, and an eagle once controlled by another skinchanger who was killed (III: 171, 835)
- Wargs seem to have some inner sense which lets them locate their beasts, at least to some degree (III: 295)
- Skinchangers may be able to change into the skins of other people, although perhaps only if they are somehow mentally damaged (III: 459, 633)
- Once an animal has been joined to a man, any skinchanger can slip inside and ride him. The joining works both ways, however, for a dead skinchanger's animal carries a part of him and the new master of the beast will find the dead man's voice whispering to him (III: 835)
- If a skinchangers beast is killed while he is actively within it, he can go mad (III: 840)
- Among the ironborn, it's said that there are skinchangers among the Farwynds, able to take the form of sea lions, walruses, and even spotted whales (IV: 271)
- A skinchanger can slip into the skin of his beast from leagues away (V: 4)
- Some skinchangers have strict rules about what they are or aren't allowed to do. Examples include not eating human flesh, mating animals together, and seizing the body of another person (V: 4)
- Skinchangers can lead a "second life" after their body dies, a sweeter and simpler one in which their spirit and mind inhabits the body of their animal. Their memories slowly fade day by day, until eventually the skinchanger is gone (V: 4, 7, 10, 12)
- The loss of a beast a skinchanger controls is painful as they experience the deaths (IV: 7)
- A child who reveals himself to be a skinchanger is often taken away and given over to the care of others like him (IV: 8)
- Some skinchangers are stronger than others (IV: 8)
- Dogs are the easiest beasts to bond with, because they live so close to men. Wolves are harder, as they're never truly tamed. Some wargs claim no other animals should be bonded: cats are vain and cruel, elk and deer are prey and are likely to make a skinchanger grow as cowardly, while bears, boars, badgers, and weasels simply should not be of any interest. Birds are especially dangerous, some hold, because taking hawks, owls, ravens, and the like means you'll be able to fly among the clouds and so will find life in your own form a pale shadow of what it once was. Not all skinchaners agree, however (V: 10)
- Skinchangers occasionally gather together. The wargs are the most common (V: 10)
- A skinchanger with a goat (V: 10)
- The free folk both honor skinchangers and fear them, while it's said among them that beyond the Wall the kneelers hunt them down and kill them (V: 11)
- Skinchangers can always sense one another (V: 12)
- A person can resist the invasion of their mind by a skinchanger, but it can be a horrifying and ugly struggle (V: 14)
- As a powerful skinchanger dies, his ability expands to encompass all animals in his vicinity (V: 14)
Last revised March 15, 2013
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