Ironborn before the Andals

[OldManDennis]

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but I'm about half way through the WOIAF and am curious about iron.

In the section covering "prehistory" it is said that the Andals were able to conquer most of Westeros due in large part to their superior iron weaponry. However in the section on the Iron islands, it refers to the islands as the Iron Islands, the people as the Ironborn, and specifically their iron weapons thousands of years before the arrival of the Andals.

So... what gives? Continuity error?

[Knight of the Amused Tree]

I don't have the WOIAF in front of me now so this will be a speculative rather than text based opinion: I don't recall the citations you refer to when you say "...specifically their iron weapons thousands of years before the arrival of the Andals."

But if your question is., "Then why didn't the Ironborn conquer all of Westeros with their superior iron weapons like the Andals did?", then my answer would be that the Iron Islands did conquer parts of Westeros before the Andals. At different times they held parts of the Reach, The Arbor, the Shield Islands, Fair Isle, Bear Island and other parts of the North, some of the Riverlands I believe (pre-dating Harran) and so on. The problem was they never had enough people to hold them. Eventually they were pushed out. If you haven't read the "Iron Islands" section yet then when you do you'll get a better sense of this.

On the other hand, as the World Book points out time and time again, the Andals just kept coming in wave after wave and once they were established in the Vale they pushed out from there. It was slow going but eventually they either displaced the the First Men lords or intermarried. Either way- in the end they held on. Hope that helps.

[OldManDennis]

No, my question was more "Is there a continuity error where the First Men supposedly did not know much about iron before the arrival of the Andals, despite the Ironborn hacking at them with iron axes for thousands of years."

Unfortunately I don't have the book, I have the audio book. Great for listening to on a commute, terrible for scanning for something specific and quoting it on the internet.

AWOIAF has supporting troubling documentation - http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Age_of_Heroes

The Grayiron house dates to the Age of Heros... a time when iron should be unknown in Westeros.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

Wasn't the crown of Winter said to be Bronze and Iron, the metals of winter. Then we have the Ironwood trees that the doors to the Winterfell crypts are made out of and I suspect the Yronwoods are named after. hmm...

[OldManDennis]

I can see a way out in those examples.

For the trees...

The protoword for iron might have existed prior to the knowledge of iron. Perhaps it meant hard. The trees could then be called ironwood trees. When the metal was discovered, it was named "hard".

For the crown...

They may have found enough iron for a crown in meteorites. That or the legend that Robb based his crown on might have been incorrect.

Those are both reaches though.

[TheSovereignGrave]

I have a possible great explanation for this. Prior to the coming of the Andals, the First Men spoke the Old Tongue. Ironwood, Ironborn, Greyiron, etc. could simply be what they came to be known as in the tongue of the Andals, when their names in the Old Tongue was something else (or something similar).

[RumHam]

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but I'm about half way through the WOIAF and am curious about iron.

In the section covering "prehistory" it is said that the Andals were able to conquer most of Westeros due in large part to their superior iron weaponry. However in the section on the Iron islands, it refers to the islands as the Iron Islands, the people as the Ironborn, and specifically their iron weapons thousands of years before the arrival of the Andals.

So... what gives? Continuity error?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't say the Ironborn had iron weapons before the Andals came. They may have had iron though. I'm pretty sure a civilization can know what iron is but not have the knowledge required to work it into steel yet.

I have a possible great explanation for this. Prior to the coming of the Andals, the First Men spoke the Old Tongue. Ironwood, Ironborn, Greyiron, etc. could simply be what they came to be known as in the tongue of the Andals, when their names in the Old Tongue was something else (or something similar).

This also works.

[OldManDennis]

I listened to it again this afternoon. Unfortunately I can't quote the page because I have the audio book.

It definitely mentions the iron borne as having "black" weapons before the arrival of the Andals. Black would be the color of crude iron.

I don't mind using changing language to explain Ironwood, but I'm less comfortable with the Iron islands.... because what are the chances that the place everybody calls iron islands inhabitied by ironborn paying the iron price for things ruled by Grayirons (all these things happening prior to the arrival of the Andals) just so happens, after people figure out what iron is, it turns out that this place where everything is already called the iron islands happens to have a ton of iron ore. Who knew?

And no, you don't really know what iron is before you know how to smelt it. It doesn't really exist naturally as iron, like gold does. It's too reactive. The only way to get iron (in very very very small quantities) without smelting it is by finding meteors. And once you start smelting it, you are going to make swords out of it. And once you do that, your enemies are going to capture somebody, heat up a poker, and get the secret out of them. You can't raid the greenlands for a thousand years with iron weapons without the first men figuring it out.

[RumHam]

It definitely mentions the iron borne as having "black" weapons before the arrival of the Andals. Black would be the color of crude iron.

...fishing boats and trading cogs of the First Men, which seldom ventured out of sight of land, were no match for the swift longships of the ironmen with their great sails and banks of oars. And

when battle was joined upon the shores, mighty kings and famous warriors fell before the reavers like wheat before a scythe, in such numbers that the men of the green lands told each other that the ironborn were demons risen from some watery hell, protected by fell sorceries and possessed of foul black weapons that drank the very souls of those they slew.

So maybe they did produce iron weapons earlier than the rest of Westeros. But it could be that black is being used in the negative/evil sense here. Just like the Ironborn weren't actually demons and their swords didn't actually drink souls, they may not actually have been black/iron. Historical confusion could also play a role, I believe there was some mistake in the timing of the ironborn and the Andals mentioned in the errors thread.

And no, you don't really know what iron is before you know how to smelt it. It doesn't really exist naturally as iron, like gold does. It's too reactive. The only way to get iron (in very very very small quantities) without smelting it is by finding meteors. And once you start smelting it, you are going to make swords out of it. And once you do that, your enemies are going to capture somebody, heat up a poker, and get the secret out of them. You can't raid the greenlands for a thousand years with iron weapons without the first men figuring it out.

Well you learn something new every day. Just for my own edification what are you pulling out of the ground when you mine iron?

[TheSovereignGrave]

I don't mind using changing language to explain Ironwood, but I'm less comfortable with the Iron islands.... because what are the chances that the place everybody calls iron islands inhabitied by ironborn paying the iron price for things ruled by Grayirons (all these things happening prior to the arrival of the Andals) just so happens, after people figure out what iron is, it turns out that this place where everything is already called the iron islands happens to have a ton of iron ore. Who knew?

Hey, stranger things have happened. And the 'iron' in all their names could be more related to the metal's connection to weapons and have nothing to do with iron being present on the isles. For all we know the name for them in the Old Tongue could've been bronzeborn and they lived on the bronze islands and paid the bronze price while being ruled by House Greybronze. And once they adopted iron (which likely would've been before they were conquered by Andals, since there was quite a gap between the Andals first landing and their arrival on the Isles) they came to be known as Ironmen in the Andal tongue since that was what their weapons were made of. And once the Andals took over and adopted Ironborn culture, they came to be known as Ironborn, Iron Islands, Greyiron, etc. because now it was iron that was associated with weapons and and not bronze.

Though this is all pure speculation, and I would really like a definitive answer on the subject.

[OldManDennis]

Iron ore is generally iron oxides or silicates. Intense heat plus carbon from charcoal causes the oxygen to form CO2 and leave behind metallic iron. If you can get it hot enough to melt, the silicates will float to the top, but in the middle ages you had to just bang on it with a hammer a LOT and the metal would eventually be banged together and the silicates would flake away.

I'm not a metallurgist, but that's my impression of the process.