4.2.2. Ancestors and History
- When Aegon slew Black Harren, Harren's brother was Lord Commander of the Watch and had 10,000 swords at his command; but he did not march (I: 553)
- During the Wars of Conquest, the riverlands belonged to Harren the Black, King of the Isles (I: 684)
- Harren's grandfather, Harwyn Hardhand, took the Trident from Arrec the Storm King whose ancestors had won lands up to the Neck 300 years earlier by killing the last River King (I: 684)
- Harren the Black was a vain and bloody tyrant, little loved. When Aegon the Conqueror threatened, many of his lords deserted him to join Aegon's host (I: 684)
- Harren the Black and his line died in the burning of Harrenhal by Aegon the Conqueror (I: 684)
- The Greyjoys claim descent from the Grey King of the Age of Heroes, who was supposed to have ruled the western isles and the sea itself, taking a mermaid as his wife (I: 687)
- King Urron of House Greyiron made the High Kingship of the Isles hereditary choosing some 5,000 years ago by slaying all the other kings when they had assembled for the choosing. These events, called the kingsmoot, has traditionally been held at the hill of Nagga on Old Wyk, where the Grey King's Hall was said to have stood. (I: 688. IV: 29. SSM: 1)
- The line of King Urron was ended when the Andals swept over the islands a thousand years after his line became hereditary High Kings. The Greyjoys, like other lords, intermarried with the conquerors (I: 688)
- King Qhored boasted, truthfully, that his laws were known wherever men could smell salt water or hear the crash of waves (I: 688)
- Qhored's descendants lost the Arbor, Oldtown, Bear Island, and much of the western shore over the centuries (I: 688)
- Harren the Black ruled all the lands between the mountains from the Neck to the Blackwater Rush (I: 688)
- Lord Vickon Greyjoy of Pyke was chosen by the surviving ironborn lords to have primacy over them after Aegon conquered them (I: 688)
- Harren the Black had completed Harrenhal and had finally took up residence when word came on that very day of Aegon the Conqueror's landing (II: 88)
- Harren had desired the highest hall and the most colossal towers in the Seven Kingdoms. The construction of his dream took forty years. Thousands of captives from the other realms died in the quarries chained to sledges or laboring on the five huge towers. Weirwoods were cut down to provide rafters and beams (II: 88)
- Harren the Black beggared the riverlands and the Iron Islands to make Harrenhal (II: 88)
- The point of land on which Pyke was raised had once thrust out like a sword into the ocean, but the waves had broken and shattered it thousands of years past (II: 121)
- Thousands of years before, King Urron Redhand said "The Drowned God makes men, but it's men who make crowns" (II: 123)
- Rodrik Greyjoy, son to Balon Greyjoy, assaulted Seagard during his father's great rebellion. Jason Mallister slew him beneath the castle's walls and threw the ironborn reavers back into the sea (II: 131)
- A thousand years earlier, the sons of the River King were butchered in their beds at Pyke so that the pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland (II: 133)
- Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke, unless it was once in a great while by their own brothers (II: 133)
- Maron Greyjoy, the second of Balon Greyjoys sons, was killed in the collapse of the old south tower along the curtain wall (II: 136)
- Victarion, Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet and brother to Lord Balon Greyjoy, sailed into Lannisport with his other brother Euron Croweye and burned the ships there. Victarion is a fearsome warrior, sung of in the alehouses, but it was Euron who made the plan (II: 284)
- 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)
- In 211, reavers out of the Iron Islands were known to raid coastal villages of the Reach and the Westerlands, even going as far south as the Arbor, under the auspices of Lord Dagon Greyjoy (TSS: 82, 83, 121)
- Ironborn reavers carried off half the wealth and some hundred women of Fair Isle in 211 (TSS: 121)
- No woman has ever ruled the ironborn (IV: 23)
- In old times, kings were chosen by the kingsmoot. Among the kings so chosen as High King were Urras Ironfoot, Sylas Flatnose, Harrag Hoare, and the Old Kraken (IV: 29)
- The Old Kraken was an ancestor of the Greyjoys (IV: 29, 278)
- 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)
- Though it's traditionally said the last kingsmoot took place four thousand years ago, Denestan's Questions suggests the true date is less than half that (IV: 165)
- It's said no woman has ever ruled over the ironborn (IV: 165)
- Beneath Nagga's Ribs, every captain stands as an equal (IV: 166)
- The kings of the ironborn wore driftwood crowns (IV: 255, 263)
- No king of the Iron Isles ever needed a Hand (IV: 265)
- In ancient days, the ironborn would sail their ships up the Mander as far as Bitterbridge, plundering and reaving with impunity. This changed when the Gardeners armed the fisherfolk of the Shield Islands some two thousand years ago (IV: 431)
- Black Harren's line still exists through the female line (IV: 439)
- The ironborn have not dared to raid the Reach since the days of Dagon Greyjoy. Lord Dagon was wont to flee back to the Iron Islands whenever ships were sent after his raiders (IV: 474)
- The reaving of the ironborn under Lord Dagon led the Lannisters to begin to build ships for an attack against the Iron Islands while Lord Beron Stark was gathering swords at Winterfell to drive the ironmen from his shores (TMK: 664)
- The Seven Kingdoms were seemingly left to fend for themselves against Lord Dagon Greyjoy and his ironborn reavers troubling all the lands on the western coast, as King Aerys I ignored the trouble so he could be closeted with his books, while Prince Rhaegal was said to be so mad as to dance naked in the halls of the Red Keep and Prince Maekar so angry at his brother and his advisors that he sat and brooded at Summerhall. Some blamed Lord Bloodraven, the Hand of the King, for this state of affairs, while others claimed his attention was focused on Tyrosh where the sons of Daemon Blackfyre and Bittersteel plotted another attempt to seize the Iron Throne (TMK: 664)
- House Hoare was the house of Harwyn Hardhand and Harren the Black (SSM: 1)
- Roughly around 210, House Stark was in a difficult situation, with the current lord of the house slowly succumbing to wounds he received fighting the ironborn. (SSM: 1, 2)
Last revised September 04, 2012
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