Heresy 133 The Weirwoods

[Morrigan's Raven]

"There they forged the Pact...[and] so the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces (1.66, BRAN)

Green men, always with a space between words. Men who were sacrificed or men who are wedded? If wed to the trees, it makes acts "before gods and men" very interesting! Also speaks toward the uneasiness felt by some here regarding Bloodraven's part in bringing Bran North. Bran's rightful place as a greenseer and Man might be the God's Eye.

"A weirwood.... seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes?... Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow"

Love this passage! Is Bran "answering a prayer" here? And how he pops up where Jon is...could a greenseer, looking into the future, cause a weirwood to grow where needed?

Wonderful work, Snowfyre!

[Frey family reunion]

Excellent essay Snowfyre, it also takes me back to one of my pms I sent you concerning the binary star Mira, a red giant star accreting mass to a white dwarf companion star. I think GRRM may be pointing us in this direction when he names Meera (Mira), Jojen and Howland (Johannes Holwarda the discoverer of Mira's variability). Perhaps what we're looking at is a red giant, the weirwoods, looking to transfer or accrete their knowledge to a new host (Bran?).

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

Thanks all, for the kind words! As I mentioned in the OP - there really is so much material on the weirwoods (or connected to the weirwoods), that at times it felt a bit overwhelming. Initially I had decided not to get into the grafting metaphor at all in my essay - but after writing (and scrapping) a couple of outlines, it struck me that there really was no better way to integrate and connect the oh-so-many facets of this tree. Still, in the end I did feel like I was forced to go "basic" on the limited number of topics I could address - and after submitting the piece to Black Crow, all I could think about were the things I'd left out! So I truly do appreciate all of your words of encouragement - and I look forward to reading all of your thoughts on these matters. :)

As originally supplied this exhaustive list of weirwoods and references to weirwood was to have followed Snowfyre's essay, but rather than trip up the discussion I've inserted it first, with discussion to follow:

...Particular thanks to you, Black Crow - for dealing with all of my formatting issues, on top of everything. (I'm not surprised - and not troubled - that some of the indenting / numbered lists didn't come through.) And I do agree - posting this list first made good sense. Hope it remains a useful resource for Heresy!

Something that's interesting is the young weirwood growing in the Whispers as seen by Brienne. It hints that weirwood trees grow on their own in wild places if not cut down by humans.

And that Storms End, a house that has kept to the Faith for thousands of years, had a weirwood heart tree.

Meaning that Osha was wrong. The Old gods do have eyes south of the Neck.

I'll post more on this very interesting subject later.

Like you, SacredOrderOfGreenMen, I find the young weirwoods particularly intriguing. The tree at the Whispers ("a pale stranger") is one - and I'd also add the "crooked, skinny" tree at the Nightfort, as well as the "young, slender" heart tree at Riverrun. A couple of other folks brought up the question of propagation - LynnS and Hrafntyr, I think - and it's a question I've turned over in my head a bit. Clearly there are seeds (Bran eats the "paste of weirwood seeds" to be wedded to the trees), but I am also inclined to think that new weirwoods may possibly spring from the still-living roots of older trees. I'm not entirely sure about that (why wouldn't there be young suckers and saplings at High Heart, for example?), but it's worth wondering about.

Maybe the "waking giants" does not refer to giants the species but giants the weirwoods?

Whoever sounded the horn of Joramun woke the old powers again. And if the horn was the broken one found near the fist, maybe Craster was the one to sound it (why?) and started his "business" afterwards?

That was my thought, too - that perhaps the "giants" referred to in connection with Joramun's horn are actually the weirwoods. But if that were the case, it's not clear to me when (or whether) the Horn was blown in our story. Bran Vras has theorized that Mance may have found, and sounded, the horn in Winterfell during ADWD - but the Halfhand announces the waking of the old powers ("the trees have eyes") way back in ACOK. So it would be a bit of a puzzle...

Snowfyre, ye gods :bowdown: Amazing work, really.

Too much to go into at 2:53am but I was drawn to this:

Brilliant point and to expand on your illusion to dragons, in old Valyria we have a culture that used old power to elevate themselves almost to godhood. This my idea about the meaning of the sphinx, human and dragon, the gods amongst us. This is true of the singers and their human allies too. Using old power to become something akin to gods. There really is a lovely symmetry between the FM and the Valyrians, the weirwoods and the dragons.

Thanks, TBC - much appreciated! :) Reading it again, I realized that I didn't really spell out my comment about the dragons "defying" Mel's dualistic faith (though you may remember the discussion when that point came up a few threads back - the particular post I had in mind is this one). Just to complete that thought here - I was primarily thinking of Maester Aemon's (and Septon Barth's) comment that dragons are "neither male nor female... but now one and now the other, changeable as flame," a fact that would appear to contradict the essentially dualistic worldview that Mel outlines to Davos on Dragonstone.

In that earlier post (in Heresy 124, linked two sentences back), I noted irony in the fact that "wak[ing] dragons from stone" was one component of the fulfillment of Mel's prophecy. But more recently, I also noticed the very interesting comment she makes to Jon at the Wall, regarding the "joining" of male and female as a source of great power. So now I'm rethinking that "irony" a bit - and wondering if Mel's worldview isn't a bit more complex than I was giving her credit for. It also does not escape me that the word she uses ("joining") is one that appears frequently in definitions of the concept of "grafting."

There's a wealth of information here, Snowfyre. A lot of research went into gathering this information all together and for that you should be recognized.

My first thought about the faces carved into the trees is not new, because I know I've read others wondering the same thing and that is perhaps there are greenseers under every tree with a face? On the Isle of Faces, it must have taken a great number of greenseers to keep watch over the Pact. Maybe blood sacrifice keeps the greenseer alive?

Snowy! This is super amazing :bowdown: i absolutely love it,there is so much points to talk about here but i must say i am so glad you brought up these points because this is exactly what they are. Which begs the question about their autonomy in terms of the COTF and the effect the have on the person they've joined to. If Leaf is correct about the treees being able to teach Bran what might he be learning.Surely its not just transfer of info but possibly the synthesis of the info and what to do with it after.

"But first: What is the Weirwood, really? I propose that the weirwood is a symbiont: a life form capable of benefitting from partnership with an unlike organism. The partnership may be mutually beneficial, or one-sided - in the case of the weirwood, we don't yet know for sure."

"Instability and uncertainty. Disruption and transformation. Changelings and parasites. These words feel appropriate as we begin this review of weirwoods in Martin's text. Five books into this saga, there is still "much and more" we readers do not know about these trees - but by the end of ADWD, it is clear that these old powers are beginning to play a more active role in the story. Things are changing, winter is coming, and the weirwoods are right in the thick of it."

Thanks, Feather and Wolfmaid! One of the questions I've continued to revisit since writing the essay is about this issue you've each brought up here: weirwood independence or autonomy. Clearly the "heart tree" represents the graft - if we believe what we're told, then the eyes are carved for the purpose of facilitating the work of the greenseer. But does every carved face require a greenseer connection? It would seem not - or at least, not continually, as Bran has only just begun that relationship through the Winterfell tree. But of course, there are curiosities of space and time here too. Bran sees through the Winterfell heart tree, but he is not physically in Winterfell - in fact he had to travel a great distance, and many weeks, to find Bloodraven and be "wedded" to the trees. And then, as Bloodraven says, "the lives of trees are different" and time for the tree is not like time for men - so just exactly how long has Bran been connected to the Winterfell tree? That may depend on whether you ask Bran or the tree... and given some time, there may not be any difference.

Meanwhile... we think Bran/Hodor's seen some Singer greenseers down in the caverns, but so far only one weirwood has been described as having a carved face with "slitted eyes." Needless to say, I find that tree particularly curious...

Hmm very nice.

The first thing that strikes me is this: Winterfell heart tree looks like a Stark and White Harbour heart tree looks like a Manderly. The heart tree at White Harbour should have been planted much before the arrival of Manderlys and they are basically Andals. We also know that they held the Wolf's Den longest.

We also know that Winterfell heart tree has a traditional solemn Stark face yet during the fArya wedding, Theon noted that it looked as if it is about to laugh. It is clear that Bran was looking from that tree.

Therefore, I think the heart trees are subject to mood swings and they can change to look like their owners. Riverrun heart tree was fierce but sad, exactly how Cat felt.

I am most curious about the Harrenhal heart tree. Was it planted by Harren the Black? Why is it so hateful and angry?

The Raventree weirwood represents Bloodraven perfectly...

...That Theon can see Bran's face instead of the old Stark visage indicates to me that Theon has reached a state where he can look behind the curtain...

Glad you brought up the faces and the "family resemblances," Paper Waver. I might disagree with you a bit about the "mood swings," but perhaps only in terms of how they are attributed. In other words, while certain characters perceive a different or changing countenance in the trees - it seems arguable to me that this is a case of "beauty (or laughter, or anger, or Bran) being in the eye of the beholder." And in saying that, I don't at all mean to suggest that the perceived mood (or person) isn't actually there - that Bran isn't actually present in the Winterfell tree, for instance, or that Theon doesn't sense something that is real. But rather, that the "mood" may be expressed on the spiritual rather than the physical plane - and may not be evident to everyone. This is one of the places where I think we see the heart tree functioning as a mediator of "liminal space" - and the fact that Theon is the character who "tunes in" to the changing expression of the tree seems to be a key point. Theon, more than any other character we've seen, has experienced the violently disruptive and transformative process of being "othered" - and after the Bolton's return him to Winterfell, he displays unusual receptivity to the preternatural. (As LynnS suggests, he's now able to "look behind the curtain.") So yes, Theon sees the near-laughter on the face of the tree as Ramsay and Jeyne kneel "in submission" at their wedding, and he sees Bran. And no doubt what he sees is true. But I don't get the feeling that anyone else sees what he does. In that respect, I'd argue that Theon/Reek truly has become a sort of "living dead" - as he himself says, a ghost - and his awareness of the world appears to blend the realities of dream and the waking world.

- Another occurrence that might also be considered as evidence of a form of sacrifice would be the human skulls that Jon found half-hidden in a pile of ashes within the mouth of the Great Weirwood @ Whitetree

To add to the list of examples, concering Weirwood arrows. Bloodraven and his Raven's Teeth used Weirwood arrows. Presumably they were what he used to kill Daemon and his twins on the Redgrass Field.

Yes, a couple of good catches there. AtS - I really should have included the Whitetree sacrifices in the essay. I suppose my initial thought on that was simply that it looked more like a burnt offering than a "blood sacrifice" per se, but either way it clearly represents a "human sacrifice." And it's entirely possible (as I think you might argue) that the ashes in the mouth of the "monstrous" tree at Whitetree represent the ultimate fate of Craster's sons.

Another instance of possible "blood sacrifice" that I noticed just the other day - and had not recognized before - occurs under the Hollow Hill, when the Hound defeats Lord Beric in his trial by combat, when Beric's "blood came rushing out in a hot black gush... [and] The dirt drank his blood." Though in that case, it's not clear that Lord Beric's secret hideout is located beneath living trees - or whether the roots are all that remains of trees that were cut down. (Or whether that would make a difference. Would blood sacrifice encourage new weirwood growth?) It might help, I suppose, if we knew where the Hollow Hill was located...

And Toccs - thanks for that reminder. Honestly, by the time I got to that last bit (listing the weirwood weapons) I was a bit worn out. I recall thinking about the Raven's Teeth late in the game, but didn't have the reference handy and was too tired to go find it. I'm thinking it might be in The Sworn Sword?

How about those supremely pissed-off-looking wildling-carved non-weirwoods between Mole's Town and Castle Black?

This is a bit of an anomoly since it's the only occurance of faces carved in trees that are not weirwood. I think it's evidence that human sacrifice still occurs; a drunk, an old man and a strong man (who perhaps didn't want to be sacrificed). The trees are given the countenance of their sacrifice and selected for their physical similarity to the sacrifice. It's not clear if the faces were carved in the tree when Mole's Town was first sacked or when the free folk took up residence afterward. I suspect the sacrifices were original residents of Mole's Town, kneelers in other words. So it seems that in the absence of weirwoods; substitutes will do out of necessity.

Whether or not the gods or greenseers can bear witness or see through any old tree given a set of eyes in another question. Although Mormont's Raven is reviewing the proceedings from the branches of the old chestnut tree...

And this is one of the pieces that, in hindsight, I wish I had included in my "locations" survey. They aren't weirwoods, but they do look like heart trees... and since I did a section on "godswoods without heart trees," I probably should have addressed these three as well. LynnS, you know this already from our conversations - but I've puzzled over these three for some time, and I'm still not sure what to do with them. The chestnut, in particular, I've wanted to connect with that "lightning-blasted chestnut overgrown with wild white roses" near Craster's keep. And the "drunken giant" is an image that we see repeated in numerous places - including one of the towers at Moat Cailin, the nickname of Lord Harmund Umber (who fought the host of Raymun Redbeard), and a description of Wun Wun in Jon's last chapter of ADWD. So there's a lot going on here, and so far I haven't found a satisfying way to parse it all out.

I'm not sure if the trees are parasites or symbiotes. It's the CotF and men who use the trees but it wasn't necessary to carve faces into the trees until men came on the scene. It fits that the pact involved the creation of human greenseer; essentially pinned to the trees involving the exchange of flesh and blood, another form of sacrifice.

The Snowfyre Chorus: Thank you for such a beautifully written and thoughtful essay! I really, really like your discussion of the weirwoods as symbionts. As I think on it, though, I wonder if all weirwoods are true symbionts, since we seem to have weirwoods that exist in independence of human/CotF partnership. Though I suppose that true mutualism may not be needed for a relationship to be symbiotic, that it can just imply interrelationship that benefits both species in the relationship? Does the weirwood itself get something out of this relationship, or is it only the medium? Jojen, of course, proclaims that for the singers the weirwoods are themselves the gods, and Bran's vision suggests that the feeding of the weirwoods with the blood of sacrifice is drunk by the tree, though it might beg the question of who or what, exactly, is being fed? Is it the tree? The gods? The singer? I suppose the fact that it could be any or all simply strengthens your point that all these come together in the tree.

...

Also, a minor point, regarding Arya's one-legged salute to the Harrenhal heart tree. It immediately called to mind for me the Celtic practice of corrguinecht, "sorcery," that involved standing on one leg, upraising (we think) one arm, and closing one eye while making ar verbal attack or curse or "magical wounding" of some sort.

Hm... you know, I thought I'd been careful about my word choice there but it's possible that there was a better word than symbiont. I do think that, as far as the heart trees are involved, the weirwood is an organism living in symbiosis with humans (or COTF) - and my understanding was that symbiosis may be either mutually beneficial or one-sided. It may be a stretch to apply the word symbiont to weirwoods without carved faces? That's sort of the problem with these weirwoods, I think... figuring out just where to draw the lines. As BR says to Bran... the carved faces are just a starting point. In time, the greenseer learns to see beyond those eyes, and beyond the trees themselves.

Thanks, Hrafntyr, for the kind words! And for that information about corrguinecht. I had not run into that before, but looks like a solid piece of background - both for that Arya scene, and possibly for Martin's larger text. There certainly is a great deal of one-handed, one-eyed, and one-legged imagery in this story, all around.

[Mithras]

I fully agree that Theon's perception of the supernatural is increasing. I think Bran will be communicating with him more succesfully. I have a crackpot theory that Theon will be captured and blinded by the Weeper at Shadow Tower. After that, Theon's "third eye" (not in the sense of a skinchanger but as a means to detect the supernatural) will be opened. Bran will be his "eyes", guide him, and use him as his messenger.

[LynnS]

I should say Ye Gods and holy cow as well. I couldn't see for the forest for the trees until it was laid out in this manner. I think this is a good format for exploring these concepts. I'm gobsmacked by the amount of work that went into it Snowfyre. Thank you for undertaking it.

I don't understand the relevance of these ash, chestnut and oak either. On the surface they seem to be unusual but typical sacrifices. On another level, each tree could be said to represent Bloodraven (the old chestnut with Mormont's raven dancing attendance); the drunken ash with broken nose, a caricature of Tyrion and the oak tree perhaps a stand-in for Jon himself. This is echoed at Moat Cailin with some differences with the Children's Tower, the Drunken Tower and the battlement with the broken crenellation like a crown attended by a spindly tree covered in sheets of ghost moss (the Black Gate). So seemingly something is being played out again with a different set of instruments. It's interesting that the Hammer of Waters wasn't used at Moat Cailin (if I remember this correctly) but the sea did come to Winterfell. I wonder if the Hammer of the Waters in the latter case is a reference to a sea lord and the appellation is given not unlike Arthur Dayne reference as the Sword of the Morning. Or the potential Lightbringer.

[Hrafntýr]

<snip>

Hm... you know, I thought I'd been careful about my word choice there but it's possible that there was a better word than symbiont. I do think that, as far as the heart trees are involved, the weirwood is an organism living in symbiosis with humans (or COTF) - and my understanding was that symbiosis may be either mutually beneficial or one-sided. It may be a stretch to apply the word symbiont to weirwoods without carved faces? That's sort of the problem with these weirwoods, I think... figuring out just where to draw the lines. As BR says to Bran... the carved faces are just a starting point. In time, the greenseer learns to see beyond those eyes, and beyond the trees themselves.

I wasn't suggesting it's a bad word choice at all, and biologists recognize a wide range of relationships between species as falling under the broad heading of symbiosis. And we're just getting a brief snapshot of the total history of this species. If you're talking about trees that can live for thousands of years, then the fact that a particular individual tree doesn't have an active relationship with humans or the children right now doesn't mean that it won't at some point in its lifetime. The tree has clearly evolved to be "ready" for such relationships. Or so it would seem.

But Jojen's statement that the singers see the weirwoods as gods, and even Roose's queer statement at the Theon/fArya wedding that they stand before the god (singular, a line that troubles me to no end), also puts another interesting spin on the concept of symbiosis: the nature of the relationship between gods and worshippers. This has been a matter of theological debate in many traditions, of course: do gods need the worship of humans? Do they get something out of human offerings? Different religious traditions have varying answers to these questions. Those that stress the omnipotence of gods tend to avoid the suggestion that god(s) need(s) anything, but plenty of others figure the relationship as more symbiotic, for example that the gods need to be fed, or that it's human ritual that allows gods to be active in the world.

Then, of course, there are non-theological explanations that say this is all a human (and in this case, Children's) invention for the purpose of carrying out human/Children ends, which would figure the weirwoods as mere instruments serving the ends of beings other than themselves, there being no gods at all. I wonder how the Children understand the will or agency of the weirwoods? It seems as if the FM and Andals perceived the weirwoods to be weapons of the Children, even if some of the FM eventually came around to worshiping the Old Gods "through" them, even if they didn't see the weirwoods as themselves gods, as Jojen says the singers do.

[Black Crow]

I don't understand the relevance of these ash, chestnut and oak either...

By Oak, by Ash by Bitter Thorn...

In Kipling's version per Puck of Pook's Hill, its simply Oak, Ash and Thorn, but I prefer the oath from Jack Orion

[Frey family reunion]

Another hint as to the weirwood's relationships with a human host is the description of Bloodraven as he sits in his weirwood nest:

Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek and into his neck.

So we have a weirwood root going directly into Bloodraven's eye. Bloodraven's strong association with Odin makes me think of the loss of Odin's own eye:

"In Norse mythology, Mímisbrunnr (Old Norse "Mímir's well"^[1]) is a well associated with the being Mímir, located beneath the world tree Yggdrasil. Mímisbrunnr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Both sources relate that the god Odin once placed one of his eyes within the well. The Prose Edda details that well is located beneath one of three roots of the world tree Yggdrasil, a root that passes into the land of the frost jötnar where the primordial plane of Ginnungagap once existed. In addition, the Prose Edda relates that the water of the well contains much wisdom, and that Odin's eye sacrifice to the well was in exchange for a drink from it."

So we have Odin who sacrifices his eye to Mimir's well in exchange for a cup of knowledge. Perhaps Bloodraven and the trees have an arrangement for an exchange of wisdom or knowledge. The weirwood's gain Bloodraven's knowledge taken from his birds and Bloodraven gains the knowledge from the weirwoods.

[Melifeather]

The word simbionte was interesting as a definition closer to the comic book meaning of a parasitic alien that envelops their host like an overlaying costume with the ability to influence the host's thoughts. But in the instance of a greenseer, it's almost like a reversal with the greenseer wearing the weirwood.

[alienarea]

SNIP

That was my thought, too - that perhaps the "giants" referred to in connection with Joramun's horn are actually the weirwoods. But if were the case, it's not clear to me when (or whether) the Horn was blown in our story. Bran Vras has theorized that Mance may have found, and sounded, the horn in Winterfell during ADWD - but the Halfhand announces the waking of the old powers ("the trees have eyes") way back in ACOK. So it would be a bit of a puzzle...

SNIP

I thought about it a bit ...

Benjen would make sense. There was a recent nightwatch coat around the cache. Benjen is missing but his fellow rangers are dead. Also, Craster not having seen Benjen for three years sounds fishy.

I have speculated now and then that Benjen learned things we do not know when he was the Stark in Winterfell. Old nan was probably less confused then. Maybe he joined the nightwatch because of what he learned?

We know from the dragon horn that it burns the lungs of the person who sounds it. If Joramun's horn wakes the giant weirwoods, and Benjen sounded it, did he turn into a weirwood, white walker, ice spider, wampa?

[LynnS]

By Oak, by Ash by Bitter Thorn...

In Kipling's version per Puck of Pook's Hill, its simply Oak, Ash and Thorn, but I prefer the oath from Jack Orion

Oh! Thank you. I'll put this on my reading list. Cheers.

[Black Crow]

"There they forged the Pact...[and] so the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces (1.66, BRAN)

Green men, always with a space between words. Men who were sacrificed or men who are wedded? If wed to the trees, it makes acts "before gods and men" very interesting! Also speaks toward the uneasiness felt by some here regarding Bloodraven's part in bringing Bran North. Bran's rightful place as a greenseer and Man might be the God's Eye.

"A weirwood.... seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes?... Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow"

Love this passage! Is Bran "answering a prayer" here? And how he pops up where Jon is...could a greenseer, looking into the future, cause a weirwood to grow where needed?

Wonderful work, Snowfyre!

Just a couple of observations on this which really need fleshing out, but are worth making now:

Although GRRM has said that they will play a part in what's to come we really know very little about the Order of Green Men beyond what Maester Luwin tells us:

"There they forged the Pact... So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces"

Beyond that we have Bran speaking of them having antlers and riding on elk- [also antlered of course.

Ordinarily in folklore the wearing of antlers is a hunting motif and most prominently displayed by Herne the Hunter and sometimes the rest of the Wild Hunt as well. However the branches of antlers also resemble the branches of a tree, and presumably in this case the branches of a weirwood. Then turn back to the Green Man, traditionally depicted in art as a face wreathed in green leaves, peering out of them yet part of them, and in sculptured form placed to watch over a garden or other growing place. It is very ambiguous whether the Green Man is separate from the tree or part of the tree.

I'm sure you can see where I'm heading...

Now turn to the show, and as we've discussed before there appears to be a deliberate intention here to depict Craster's boys as having faces like weirwoods and the man in black even went so far as to have small branches growing out of his head.

And this all comes back to what we've again discussed before about how the weirwood faces are not necessarily carved at all, or at any rate if they are they take on the face of the man who has gone into the tree.

If there is indeed a symbiosis going on is that then the origin of the Order, not men solemnly pacing around the trees but going into the trees to keep watch - like the one in the Black Gate?

[Melifeather]

I agree with you Black Crow about the green men going into the trees to keep watch. Maybe over the years the factual events became more symbolic with the retelling? If there were a group of volunteers I can see how their "sacrifice" could be depicted as green faces peering out through antlers or branches. The more difficult aspect to explain away, however are the elks.

[Black Crow]

Or simply become the faces on the weirwood trees - after all if the three-fingered lot are so protective of the trees would they really carve lumps out of them?

[King of Winters]

Or simply become the faces on the weirwood trees - after all if the three-fingered lot are so protective of the trees would they really carve lumps out of them?

As Winterfell's Weirwood face changes could this mean that it's Bran's tree? The Snowfyre Chorus mentions how it's different when Theon stands with it, so is that the tree moulding itself because of it's new greenseer?

[Black Crow]

I think that's what's being hinted at in the text

[Hrafntýr]

If we take Bran's traveling back in time through the eyes of the WF weirwood to be taking us back to the "beginning," the tree has eyes to see even before the cut of the knife and the spilling of blood, otherwise Bran would not be able to witness this, right? I'm not entirely sure how this might relate to the "giving of faces" "so the gods might bear witness," but it seems like we might be able to do something with this.

I'll admit that I'm torn between the idea that "giving faces" means the inhabiting of a tree by a greenseer, and a more straightforward carving of eyes. Again looking at Luwin's statement, "So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces" there's a sequence of events suggested there: the presence of the gods is required, thus the trees are given faces, and after that the order of green seers is formed. To me this implies the carving of faces which thereby makes the tree a suitable "host" for the green seer, who is then connected to the weirnet of all the trees with faces.

In Jon's dream with the Bran-tree, Bran's face does emerge out of a weirwood where there was earlier no face, but that is a dream tree. We just don't know if a face can just emerge from a tree that is being occupied by a greenseer located at a distance, without there having been a face there before.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

By Oak, by Ash by Bitter Thorn...

In Kipling's version per Puck of Pook's Hill, its simply Oak, Ash and Thorn, but I prefer the oath from Jack Orion

Yes - you're right about that, of course. And we've touched on the Tree Song before (Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and Puck of Pook's Hill), as well as the unique presence of those three trees in the Winterfell godswood. Long ago I did consider the possibility that these trees might echo that traditional trio - but I quickly ruled it out because (in my head, at least) the Chestnut and the Hawthorn were two very different trees. But perhaps I was overthinking that. One of the defining characteristics of the Chestnut is the spiny / thorny burr that contains its fruit... so maybe Martin's just sort of, concealed that reference by substituting in the Chestnut for the "Thorn." I must say, there'd be a bit of relief in simplifying it that way. That chestnut's been driving me nuts. ;)

...Although GRRM has said that they will play a part in what's to come we really know very little about the Order of Green Men beyond what Maester Luwin tells us...

...And this all comes back to what we've again discussed before about how the weirwood faces are not necessarily carved at all, or at any rate if they are they take on the face of the man who has gone into the tree...

..If there is indeed a symbiosis going on is that then the origin of the Order, not men solemnly pacing around the trees but going into the trees to keep watch - like the one in the Black Gate?

I confess that this is how I've long imagined the Green Men of Martin's text: as something closer to the heart trees or greenseers than the more traditional figure. I had not necessarily made the direct connection to the Black Gate - but that is a tempting idea. The Black Gate is one of the topics that I felt most remiss in omitting from my OP... and while I know Heresy has considered it from other angles, from the perspective of its weirwood nature it probably deserves a closer look. Really, it would be difficult to overstate just how different that particular weirwood face is from any other we've seen: it's huge, it's animated, and it could add significant layers of meaning to what we know based just on the more "typical" carved faces. For instance, if the sacrifices made in the mouth of the "monstrous" Whitewood tree are to be taken as indicative... then the idea that Bran himself serves as a "sacrifice" looks rather clearly supported by the fact that he (with Jojen, Meera, and Hodor) passes literally into the mouth of the Black Gate to achieve passage between the realms. And Jojen's response to Sam's recognition of Bran (just prior to their descent) correspondingly takes on the tenor of ritual: "That boy is dead," he says, just before leading Bran to the giant weirwood mouth.

This is probably as good a time as any to bring up another issue that is worth mentioning (and I must give credit here to JNR, who pushed me in a PM to consider this issue more directly). It may seem so obvious as to be trivial, but by the same token it is so fundamental that we really must point out the fact that there are no weirwoods in Essos. JNR's question to me was: "why haven't they spread to Essos" like we'd expect any natural tree to do? And of course, my response was to point out that they aren't just natural plants... they're fantastical plants. But it does raise some interesting questions having to do with weirwood propagation, origins, and nature.

For instance, do weirwoods flower or fruit? If so, what do their flowers and fruit look like? We've seen a paste made of weirwood seeds, but what exactly does a weirwood seed look like, when not in a paste? For that matter, as some have already asked in this thread, how do new weirwoods get started? We've got several relatively young trees in these books - at the Nightfort, the Whispers, Riverrun. Did they spring from the roots of older plants, like suckers? Or were they planted? If from the older roots, then why hasn't the same happened at High Heart? If from a seed, then who planted the seed, or how did the seed arrive at its final destination?

Meanwhile, there might be another way you could go with this entirely. According to Lord Brynden, weirwoods "live forever if left undisturbed," and the current Lord Blackwood reports that they do not rot but turn to stone. So what if the weirwoods are, essentially, living stone? The very bones of the earth? They don't leave Westeros, because they ARE Westeros... living manifestations of the continent itself? And if it makes any sense at all to consider that possibility, then it may be worth wondering whether it's not the weirwoods that were shaped by the COTF and (eventually) the FM... but rather, the other way 'round...

[Melifeather]

If we take Bran's traveling back in time through the eyes of the WF weirwood to be taking us back to the "beginning," the tree has eyes to see even before the cut of the knife and the spilling of blood, otherwise Bran would not be able to witness this, right? I'm not entirely sure how this might relate to the "giving of faces" "so the gods might bear witness," but it seems like we might be able to do something with this.

I'll admit that I'm torn between the idea that "giving faces" means the inhabiting of a tree by a greenseer, and a more straightforward carving of eyes. Again looking at Luwin's statement, "So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces" there's a sequence of events suggested there: the presence of the gods is required, thus the trees are given faces, and after that the order of green seers is formed. To me this implies the carving of faces which thereby makes the tree a suitable "host" for the green seer, who is then connected to the weirnet of all the trees with faces.

In Jon's dream with the Bran-tree, Bran's face does emerge out of a weirwood where there was earlier no face, but that is a dream tree. We just don't know if a face can just emerge from a tree that is being occupied by a greenseer located at a distance, without there having been a face there before.

The trees see all and save the things witnessed as memories. And the greenseer can see whatever the tree saw, but I think the cutting of faces enables the greenseer to see through the tree. That may be why the wildlings cut faces in some trees because they wanted the "gods" to see through those trees. Even if the faces aren't cut but rather the faces of the greenseers melded with the tree, it would be the same thing. The tree sees all even without a greenseer.

[King of Winters]

Meanwhile, there might be another way you could go with this entirely. According to Lord Brynden, weirwoods "live forever if left undisturbed," and the current Lord Blackwood reports that they do not rot but turn to stone. So what if the weirwoods are, essentially, living stone? The very bones of the earth? They don't leave Westeros, because they ARE Westeros... living manifestations of the continent itself? And if it makes any sense at all to consider that possibility, then it may be worth wondering whether it's not the weirwoods that were shaped by the COTF and (eventually) the FM... but rather, the other way 'round...

This very much reminds me of the Gaia Theory.