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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 5, 2016 12:20:11 GMT
A collection of the words and wisdom of Old Nan along with discussion. Everyone is welcome to add quotes to the thread.
He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 12:31:49 GMT
His father would be the Hand of the King, and they were going to live in the red castle at King’s Landing, the castle the Dragonlords had built. Old Nan said there were ghosts there, and dungeons where terrible things had been done, and dragon heads on the walls.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 12:34:36 GMT
Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes. Bran was not impressed . There were crows’ nests atop the broken tower, where no one ever went but him, and sometimes he filled his pockets with corn before he climbed up there and the crows ate it right out of his hand. None of them had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in pecking out his eyes.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 12:38:44 GMT
"Crows are all liars,” Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. “I know a story about a crow."
The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. “My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too."
"I know a story about a boy who hated stories,” Old Nan said with her stupid little smile, her needles moving all the while, click click click
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 12:46:23 GMT
Oh, my sweet summer child,”Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”
“You mean the Others,”Bran said querulously.
“The Others,”Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.”Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”
“Well,”Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only …”
Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,”she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”
Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.
“Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—"
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 12:52:05 GMT
All Bran could think of was Old Nan’s story of the Others and the last hero, hounded through the white woods by dead men and spiders big as hounds. He was afraid for a moment , until he remembered how that story ended. “The children will help him,” he blurted, “the children of the forest!”
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Post by Ser Duncan on Mar 6, 2016 15:27:34 GMT
Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch...For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. Sounds like they either glamoured or warded their settlements as a matter of course. Like the Isle of Faces that took Howland the better part of 2 years to find. |
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 20:41:21 GMT
Sounds like they either glamoured or warded their settlements as a matter of course. Like the Isle of Faces that took Howland the better part of 2 years to find. A glamour of sorts like the Isle of Faces sounds reasonable. I don't know if we will ever get an explanation of the Isle being hidden in plain sight, but some sort of ward/glamour must be used. And a thought came to me just now. I wonder if a glamour used to make you see the same trees or scenery or hill could be what is used to hide such places. The scene with Bran and the gang travelling with Coldhand's elk comes to mind. Meera believes they are going in circles and seeing the same scenery, but what if it was a glamour? Or better yet, a ripple in space time. Magically speaking, of course. That way you the people looking for the Isle of Faces, for example, can't get where they are going.  |
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Post by Ser Duncan on Mar 6, 2016 21:03:00 GMT
Yep, that's what I was thinking. Good catch on the Meera believing they are going in circles. I think you're right and they use a glamour that hides things in plain site. But glamours are tricky because when Jon goes to fight Mance, glamoured as the Lord of Bones, Jon notices that he's taller and more widely built than he should be.
So what if these glamours are like mirrors or something, making you believe you've come to a different place, when actually you are walking in circles until you breakthrough the glamour, like Jon did, by catching the inconsistencies?
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 6, 2016 21:15:19 GMT
Yep, that's what I was thinking. Good catch on the Meera believing they are going in circles. I think you're right and they use a glamour that hides things in plain site. But glamours are tricky because when Jon goes to fight Mance, glamoured as the Lord of Bones, Jon notices that he's taller and more widely built than he should be. So what if these glamours are like mirrors or something, making you believe you've come to a different place, when actually you are walking in circles until you breakthrough the glamour, like Jon did, by catching the inconsistencies? Oh. I guess Howland would know the way to circumvent the magic that is used in these instances. And I took it that Howland stayed the winter on the Isle, not that it took him that much time to reach the Isle. |
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Post by Ser Duncan on Mar 6, 2016 21:21:37 GMT
Oh. I guess Howland would know the way to circumvent the magic that is used in these instances. And I took it that Howland stayed the winter on the Isle, not that it took him that much time to reach the Isle. No, you're right. It was my bad for not rereading the story properly. It just says he took many a day to reach the Green Men. |
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Post by freyfamilyreunion on Mar 7, 2016 16:58:34 GMT
I've been pondering whether there could be some sort of alliance between Bloodraven and Howland. Bloodraven being an emissary for the Children, while Howland being an emissary for the Green Men, the two communicating through the Weirwoods. I'm not sure of the timeline, but had Bloodraven already left the Night's Watch at the time of the Harrenhal tourney?
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Post by Ser Duncan on Mar 7, 2016 17:14:55 GMT
I've been pondering whether there could be some sort of alliance between Bloodraven and Howland. Bloodraven being an emissary for the Children, while Howland being an emissary for the Green Men, the two communicating through the Weirwoods. I'm not sure of the timeline, but had Bloodraven already left the Night's Watch at the time of the Harrenhal tourney? I'm terrible at maths, but I would think that by the time Harrenhal happened, BR was already with the CotF. I think this because of what Aemon says about being tested to Jon. Wasn't one of them the death of his whole family and he could do nothing? Meaning the events after HH, during the Rebelion. Sounded like he was on his own by then because he doesn't ever mention his half great uncle, which is what BR would be to him, as being alive, or at the least with him. I like the idea of both of them being either in contact or in some capacity on the same page. Heh, makes me think the Hooded Man in WF is Howland then. (think we need a crackpot smiley) |
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Post by Maester Flagons on Mar 7, 2016 17:17:16 GMT
That is an interesting notion and is very likely, in my opinion. I believe Bloodraven had been gone from the Wall at the time of the tourney.
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Post by freyfamilyreunion on Mar 7, 2016 21:41:54 GMT
As for Nan's stories, one thing about two of them struck me as being variants of the Jack and the Bean Stalk story. The one you mentioned above about the bad little boy who climbed too high, and then another story in ACOK about a clever boy who escaped a castle of giants only to get killed by the Others. So in both cases, as opposed to the ending of the Jack and the Bean Stalk story, the boy's journey comes to an unfortunate end. Don't know if it means anything or not, but I thought I'd mention it.
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