3.4.1. Geography beyond the Wall
- The forest north of the Wall is never allowed closer than half a mile, and is supposed to be haunted (I: 179)
- Over the decades, the places which the abandoned citadels once manned have had the forest creeping in nearer to the Wall (I: 179)
- Icy mountains rise west and north of the Shadow Tower (I: 372)
- Beyond the Wall, in the haunted forest, there are groves of carven weirwoods left by the Children (I: 432)
- One can find groves of nine carven weirwoods beyond the Wall, something which is unheard of south of it (I: 434)
- The Gorge (I: 654)
- There is a small village, consisting of four one-room houses of unmortared stone around a well and sheepfold named Whitetree which appears on old maps. Its name comes from the giant weirwood that is in its midst, its limbs pale and its face having a hole large enough to place a sheep within for a mouth (II: 150)
- There are other villages south of Whitetree, at least three of them (II: 152)
- North of Whitetree there's water, perhaps a lake. West of it are some flint hills (II: 152)
- The "ranger roads" are game trails and stream beds which the brothers of the Watch who are ranging north use to lead them deeper into the north beyond the Wall (II: 153)
- There are at least seven wildling villages between Castle Black and Craster's Keep (II: 260)
- The Frostfangs are cruel and inhospitable, a wilderness of stone and ice (II: 275)
- The Fist of the First Men is a hill that juts above a dense tangle of forest. It's windswept heights are visible from miles away (II: 371)
- The Fist has steep bare brown slopes, knuckled with stone (II: 371)
- The Fist's summit is crowned by a chest-high wall of tumbled grey rocks patched with lichen and bearded with moss. It is difficult to find a gap in the wall where horses can be led through (II: 371)
- The Fist of the First Men is an ancient ringfort used in the Dawn Age (II: 371)
- There is a brook at the foot of the Fist (II: 372)
- 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)
- From the summit of the Fist, the Milkwater (a river) can be seen curving away to the south (II: 373)
- Up-river from the Fist, the land is more rugged, the dense forest giving way to bare stoney hills that rise high and wild to the north and the west (II: 373)
- The mountains in the northwestern horizon from the Fist are many, range on range of them fading into the distance, their jagged peaks always snow-covered (II: 373)
- To the south and east of the Fist, the wood goes on as far as the eye can see (II: 373)
- Pines and sentinel trees dominate the forest south and east of the Fist, but occasional broadleafs or weirwoods can be seen (II: 373)
- The easiest road up to the Frostfangs (the mountains northwest of the Fist) is to follow the Milkwater to its source, but this path is very visible. Other paths into the Frostfangs include the Giant's Stair and the Skirling Pass, if it is clear (II: 374)
- The Frostfangs are very cold, even in the summer (II: 374)
- Not even wildlings dare live in the Frostfangs during the winter (II: 374)
- For a sizeable host, the only way down from the Frostfangs is along the Milkwater (II: 374)
- A fire lit on the summit of the Fist would be visible from the foothills of the Frostfangs (II: 375)
- The Skirling Pass is more than two thousand feet above sea level. It is named for the keening sound the wind makes as it blows through the pass (II: 538)
- By day the mountains are a blue-grey, brushed by frost. By night, they're black, unless the moon limns them in silver and white (II: 538)
- The Skirling Pass is actually a series of passes, a long and twisting course that goes up around a succession of icy wind-carved peaks and down through hidden valleys that rarely see sunlight (II: 538)
- Few trees grow on the slopes of the Frostfangs; those that do are stunted and twisted, growing sideways from cracks and fissures (II: 538)
- Tumbled shelves of rock often overhang trails that make their way up the slopes (II: 538)
- The Frostfangs have a diverse series of wonders. Icy waterfalls plunge over sheer stone cliffs, mountain meadows are filled with grass and wildflowers, there are ravines so deep and black they seem to go all the way to hell, and bridges of natural stone span distances with only the sky to either side (II: 539)
- Above the treeline of the Frostfangs, particularly about the Skirling Pass, there is no grass with a few weeds and pale litchen clinging to life amongst cracks in the rock (II: 557)
- A wind-carved arch marks the highest point of the Skirling Pass before it broadens and begins a long descent towards the valley of the Milkwater (II: 557)
- From the top of the Skirling Pass, there is a hidden valley, long and v-shaped, amongst the mountains. A glacier of ice several thousand high plugs one end, squeezed between the mountains. Under that icy height is a great lake, its waters a deep cobalt that reflect the snow-capped peaks that surround it (II: 560-561)
- The deep lake amongst the mountains is the source of the Milkwater (II: 561)
- The Forktop is a huge mountain with jagged twin peaks in the Frostfangs (II: 562)
- There's a path through the heart of the mountains, a tunnel whose entrance is hidden behind a twisting waterfall. The stony path twists and turns and goes up and down and at times is tight enough that garrons will become nervous (II: 693-694)
- The path takes many hours to walk (II: 694)
- The banks of the Milkwater are stony (III: 2)
- The shortest way to the Wall from the Fist of the First Men is due south towards the Shadow Tower (III: 6)
- The foothills of the Frostfangs are full of narrow winding valleys (III: 11)
- There is a region named Thenn in the far north (III: 80)
- The Milkwater passes through the heart of the Haunted Forest (III: 173)
- Not far from the Fist of the First Men, the Milkwater grows shallow as it makes a great loop to the east (III: 176)
- The south slope of the Fist of the First Men is the easiest approach (III: 176)
- There's rough, hilly ground near the Wall between the Shadow Tower and Castle Black (III: 295)
- Deep lakes stretch like long thing fingers along narrow valleys floors amidst the foothills of the Frostfangs, and flint ridges and pine-clad hills stand side by side (III: 295)
- There is a vast network of caves near the Wall and the abandoned castles of Greyguard and Stonedoor. It's said one of the passages even opens south of the Wall that the wildlings call Gorne's Way (III: 297, 300)
- Thenn is a little land, a high mountain valley hidden among the northernmost peaks of the Frostfangs, surrounded by cave dwellers, Hornfoot men, giants, and the cannibal clans of the ice rivers (III: 299)
- Oak and ash trees can be found in the Haunted Forest, along with sentinels and weirwoods (III: 336)
- The land west of Castle Black is rugged and wild, full of huge humped hills, high granites cliff, deep valleys, and so on (III: 336, 337)
- The Gorge is very deep, and is used by wildlings to slip around the Shadow Tower in the west (III: 338)
- Beyond Skagos is the Shivering Sea (III: 608)
- The eastern coast has a hundred little coves where wildlings are wont to trade (III: 608)
- Within the deep Gorge is a place called the Bridge of Skulls. Around it and below it are many rocks, and it stands over at least one pool of water (III: 780, 861)
- The woods in the lands beyond the Wall are full of streams and lakes (V: 66)
- No army could go west around the Wall because of the mountains and a deep river gorge. Only small groups of raiders ever filter through (SSM: 1)
- Hardhome is the closest things the wildlings have to a city (SSM: 1)
Last revised March 21, 2013
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