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Horn of Winter (ALL SPOILERS)


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So I have been rereading the series, and in ACOK, Jon, with Ghosts help, finds the cache of dragonglass. Also in the cache, is an old aurochs horn banded in bronze. Later when he cleans it up, he finds it cracked and it won't sound. He gives it to Sam. Now we know that Mance bluffed about having the horn, the great big horn that Mel burned, was just a horn. What if that old horn, is THE horn, and wouldn't sound because they were north of the wall? I just imagine Bowen Marsh going through Sam's stuff and finding this old horn and giving it a blow, only to have the wall come down around him.

Thoughts?
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Sam took the horn south.
The package was likely to aid the Watch - how would a horn that tears down the Wall be of use? Probably just an old signalling horn that the Watch used, maybe put there as a red herring.

 

It would be of use for the Wall if they had it, because the enemies couldn't use it as long as the NW has it.

I agree with you though. It's a normal horn.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...
Just now, King Viserys Targaryen IV said:

It has to be something. It is Chekhov's Horn at this point.

Why find it, find out it is cracked, send it with Sam... only for it to be a normal horn?

I agree and also that it was left with the stash of obsidian daggers, it's obviously important for something.

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I know it's not really much of a theory, but I believe that that the horn will be used in TWOW. On some of the promotional covers to the book there is a horn. I think this is a hint at said horn. Also, with the death of Jon, this would be another twist to make the wall/Others story go bizzare. It would also allowed for the Others to come through and wreck havok for TWOW and ADOS

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On September 16, 2015 at 1:59 AM, Eddard Tarly2 said:

Sam took the horn south.
The package was likely to aid the Watch - how would a horn that tears down the Wall be of use? Probably just an old signalling horn that the Watch used, maybe put there as a red herring.

Mance had a whole army digging up graves looking for the horn of Winter.

So yes, that stuff was supposed to be useful. But keeping such a horn away from people like Mance is surely a usedul thing to do.

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And the horn is cracked and chipped. It doesn't say if it is the actual horn material or if it the bronze portions... however... one of the things that the maesters learn is metalworking when they forge their chains. Bronze is one of the first (?) links and the link for astronomy(?) if I remember those things correctly.

Now that I think about it, the fact that the horn is both natural material and metalwork (a later learned skill), maybe that is a sign of peace, or cooperation, or a pact, or something between the CotF and the First Men? Could be the real deal. Ice Dragons... Hhhoooooo! ^_^

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4 hours ago, aTaleOfWhispers said:

Maybe Jon is the horn of winter and melisandre has to blow him to bring the wall down next season....

 

3 hours ago, RobOsevens said:

Almost guaranteed that will be in the show 

 

3 hours ago, Lord Lannister said:

The Horn of Winter is the other half of Tormund's member. When you blow it, the blast is is so powerful it will destroy the Wall. And it puts in context the Stark motto of "Winter is Coming."

Haha! Thanks for the laughs, guys! Been a long day.

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Listen to the storyteller . . .
 

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"My name isSamwell Tarly, of Horn . . . " He stopped and licked his lips. "I mean, I was ofHorn Hill, until I . . . left. I've come to take the black. My father is Lord Randyll, a bannerman to the Tyrells ofHighgarden. I used to be his heir, only . . . " His voice trailed off.

Jon IV, Game 26

Hmm . . . Samwell is from Horn Hill . . .
 

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"Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow," they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. "Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I amthe sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn,the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

Jon VI, Game 48

So, one of the principal duties of the men of the Night's Watch is to rouse the men of Westeros to defend against the Others. But the horn used here is metaphorical.
 

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The music grew wilder, the drummers joined in, and Hother Umber brought forth a huge curved warhorn banded in silver. When the singer reached the part in "The Night That Ended" where the Night's Watch rode forth to meet the Others in the Battle for the Dawn, he blew a blast that set all the dogs to barking.

Bran III, Clash 21

See, the horn sounds, and the Night's Watch rides off to defend the realms of men. That's a good horn. It wakes the sleepers :)
 

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"Wildlings have invaded the realm before." Jon had heard the tales from Old Nan and Maester Luwin both, back atWinterfell. "Raymun Redbeard led them south in the time of my grandfather's grandfather, and before him there was a king named Bael the Bard."

"Aye, and long before them came the Horned Lord and the brother kings Gendeland Gorne, and in ancient daysJoramun, who blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. Each man of them broke his strength on the Wall, or was broken by the power of Winterfell on the far side . . . but the Night's Watch is only a shadow of what we were, and who remains to oppose the wildlings besides us? The Lord of Winterfell is dead, and his heir has marched his strength south to fight theLannisters. The wildlings may never again have such a chance as this. I knew ManceRayder, Jon. He is an oathbreaker, yes . . . but he has eyes to see, and no man has ever dared to name him faintheart."

Jon III, Clash 23

So this Joramun cat sounded the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. That doesnt sound like a good horn, waking giants and all. I'd much rather have the horn that wakes the sleepers. But as we'll learn later, Joramun might not have been such a bad cat.
 

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Jon brushed the loose soil away to reveal a rounded bundle perhaps two feet across. He jammed his fingers down around the edges and worked it loose. When he pulled it free, whatever was inside shifted and clinked. Treasure, he thought, but the shapes were wrong to be coins, and the sound was wrong for metal.

A length of frayed rope bound the bundle together. Jon unsheathed his dagger and cut it, groped for the edges of the cloth, and pulled. The bundle turned, and its contents spilled out onto the ground, glittering dark and bright. He saw a dozen knives, leaf-shaped spearheads, numerous arrowheads. Jon picked up a dagger blade, featherlightand shiny black, hiltless. Torchlight ran along its edge, a thin orange line that spoke of razor sharpness. Dragonglass. What themaesters call obsidian. Had Ghost uncovered some ancient cache of the children of the forest, buried here for thousands of years? The Fist of the First Men was an old place, only . . .

Beneath the dragonglass was an old warhorn, made from an auroch's horn and banded in bronze. Jon shook the dirt from inside it, and a stream of arrowheads fell out. He let them fall, and pulled up a corner of the cloth the weapons had been wrapped in, rubbing it between his fingers. Good wool, thick, a double weave, damp but not rotted. It could not have been long in the ground. And it was dark. He seized a handful and pulled it close to the torch. Not dark. Black.

Even before Jon stood and shook it out, he knew what he had: the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch.

Jon IV, Clash 34

This. Keep your eye on the prize.
 

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The call came drifting through the black of night. Jon pushed himself onto an elbow, his hand reaching for Longclaw by force of habit as the camp began to stir. The horn that wakes the sleepers, he thought.

. . .

Mormont moved to the fire. "The Halfhand. And past time."

. . .

Jon slid his new dagger from its sheath and studied the flames as they played against the shiny black glass. He had fashioned the wooden hilt himself, and wound hempen twine around it to make a grip. Ugly, but it served. Dolorous Edd opined that glass knives were about as useful as nipples on a knight's breastplate, but Jon was not so certain. The dragonglass blade was sharper than steel, albeit far more brittle.

It must have been buried for a reason.

He had made a dagger for Grenn as well, and another for the Lord Commander.The warhorn he had given to Sam. On closer examination the horn had proved cracked, and even after he had cleaned all the dirt out, Jon had been unable to get any sound from it. The rim was chipped as well, but Sam liked old things, even worthless old things."Make a drinking horn out of it," Jon told him, "and every time you take a drink you'll remember how you ranged beyond the Wall, all the way to the Fist of the First Men." He gave Sam a spearhead and a dozen arrowheads as well, and passed the rest out among his other friends for luck.

The Old Bear had seemed pleased by the dagger, but he preferred a steel knife at his belt, Jon had noticed. Mormont could offer no answers as to who might have buried the cloak or what it might mean. Perhaps Qhorin will know. The Halfhandhad ventured deeper into the wild than any other living man.

. . .

Mormont's head came up sharply. "What?"

"They do not plan to climb the Wall nor to burrow beneath it, my lord. They plan to break it."

"The Wall is seven hundred feet high, and so thick at the base that it would take a hundred men a year to cut through it with picks and axes."

"Even so."

Mormont plucked at his beard, frowning. "How?"

"How else? Sorcery." Qhorin bit the egg in half. "Why else would Mance choose to gather his strength in the Frostfangs? Bleak and hard they are, and a long weary march from the Wall."

"I'd hoped he chose the mountains to hide his muster from the eyes of my rangers."

"Perhaps," said Qhorin, finishing the egg, "but there is more, I think. He is seeking something in the high cold places. He is searching for something he needs."

"Something?" Mormont's raven lifted its head and screamed. The sound was sharp as a knife in the closeness of the tent.

"Some power. What it is, our captive could not say. He was questioned perhaps too sharply, and died with much unsaid. I doubt he knew in any case."

Jon V, Clash 43

So, we know that the Mance is seeking some fell power to use against the Night's Watch.
 

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They're not wearing skins, Jon realized. That's hair. Shaggy pelts covered their bodies, thick below the waist, sparser above. The stink that came off them was choking, but perhaps that was the mammoths. AndJoramun blew the Horn of Winter, and woke giants from the earth. He looked for great swords ten feet long, but saw only clubs. Most were just the limbs of dead trees, some still trailing shattered branches. A few had stone balls lashed to the ends to make colossal mauls. The song never says if the horn can put them back to sleep.

. . .

"So how did you come by your other names?" Jon asked. "Mance called you the Horn-Blower, didn't he? Mead-king of Ruddy Hall, Husband to Bears, Father to Hosts?" It was the horn blowing he particularly wanted to hear about, but he dared not ask too plainly.And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter, and woke giants from the earth. Is that where they had come from, them and their mammoths? Had Mance Rayderfound the Horn of Joramun, and given it toTormund Thunderfist to blow?

Jon II, Storm 15

And we know that giants are real. But did the Mance blow Joramun's horn to wake these giants? If not, then what kind of giants would blowing that horn wake?
 

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"Why are you crying, then?"

"Not for fear!" She kicked savagely at the ice beneath her with a heel, chopping out a chunk. "I'm crying because we never found the Horn of Winter.We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!"

Jon IV, Storm 30

Here we're told that Mance didn't find the horn. The only reason to question the authenticity of this is that Ygritte would not have been privy to any secret strategy the Mance might have had up his sleeve.
 

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But Dywen listened, and DolorousEdd, and they made Sam and Grenn tell the Lord Commander. Mormont frowned all through the tale and asked pointed questions, but he was too cautious a man to shun any possible advantage. He asked Sam for all the dragonglass in his pack, though that was little enough. Whenever Sam thought of the cache Jon had found buried beneath the Fist, it made him want to cry. There'd been dagger blades and spearheads, and two or three hundred arrowheads at least. Jon had made daggers for himself, Sam, and Lord Commander Mormont, and he'd given Sam a spearhead, an old broken horn, and some arrowheads. Grenn had taken a handful of arrowheads as well, but that was all.

 Samwell II, Storm 33

But Jon gave that old horn to Sam, the dude from Horn Hill.
 

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 Mance never found the horn, though, that's something. The Horn of Winter, that's what he was digging for up along theMilkwater."

Maester Aemon paused, washcloth in hand. "The Horn of Winter is an ancient legend. Does the King-beyond-the-Wall truly believe that such a thing exists?"

"They all do," said Jon.

Jon VI, Storm 48

Jon believed Ygritte was right.
 

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He brought her back to the Nightfortand proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finallythe Stark ofWinterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

Bran IV, Storm 56

So Joramun the wilding joined with House Stark to free the Night's Watch from the yoke of the Night's King. Since the Wall was already built, and since we're led to believe that sounding Joramun's horn will bring down the Wall, that's not when he blew it. He must have blown it before the rise of the Night's King.
 

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Jon was trying to make sense of that when the horn blew.

The Horn of Winter, he thought, still confused from sleep. But Mance never found Joramun's horn, so that couldn't be. A second blast followed, as long and deep as the first. Jon had to get up and go to the Wall, he knew, but it was so hard . . .

Jon VIII, Storm 64
 

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"Well, I am not satisfied, Maester," said the jowly man. "I will hear these explanations for myself. Yes I will!"

Jon swallowed his anger. "I abandoned no one. I left the Fist with Qhorin Halfhand to scout the Skirling Pass. I joined the wildlings under orders. The Halfhand feared that Mance might have found the Horn of Winter . . . "

"The Horn of Winter?" Ser Alliser chuckled. "Were you commanded to count their snarksas well, Lord Snow?"

"No, but I counted their giants as best I could."

Jon IX, Storm 69

Here we learn that the legend of the Horn of Winter is known to southrons as well as northmen.
 

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Jon kept his face as still as ice. Foul enough to slay a man in his own tent under truce. Must I murder him in front of his wife as their child is being born? He closed the fingers of his sword hand. Mance was not wearing armor, but his own sword was sheathed on his left hip. And there were other weapons in the tent, daggers and dirks, a bow and a quiver of arrows, a bronze-headed spear lying beside that big black . . .

. . . horn.

Jon sucked in his breath.

A warhorn, a bloody great warhorn.

Yes," Mance said. "The Horn of Winter, that Joramun once blew to wake giants from the earth."

The horn was huge, eight feet along the curve and so wide at the mouth that he could have put his arm inside up to the elbow. If this came from an aurochs, it was the biggest that ever lived. At first he thought the bands around it were bronze, but when he moved closer he realized they were gold. Old gold, more brown than yellow, and graven with runes.


"Ygritte said you never found the horn."

"Did you think only crows could lie? I liked you well enough, for a bastard . . . but I never trusted you. A man needs to earn my trust."

Jon faced him. "If you've had the Horn ofJoramun all along, why haven't you used it? Why bother building turtles and sendingThenns to kill us in our beds? If this horn is all the songs say, why not just sound it and be done?"

It was Dalla who answered him, Dalla great with child, lying on her pile of furs beside the brazier. "We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

Mance ran a hand along the curve of the great horn. "No man goes hunting with only one arrow in his quiver," he said. "I had hoped that Styr and Jarl would take your brothers unawares, and open the gate for us. I drew your garrison away with feints and raids and secondary attacks. Bowen Marsh swallowed that lure as I knew he would, but your band of cripples and orphans proved to be more stubborn than anticipated. Don't think you've stopped us, though. The truth is, you are too few and we are too many. I could continue the attack here and still send ten thousand men to cross the Bay of Seals on rafts and takeEastwatch from the rear. I could storm the Shadow Tower too, I know the approaches as well as any man alive. I could send men and mammoths to dig out the gates at the castles you've abandoned, all of them at once."

"Why don't you, then?" Jon could have drawn Longclaw then, but he wanted to hear what the wildling had to say.

"Blood," said Mance Rayder. "I'd win in the end, yes, but you'd bleed me, and my people have bled enough."

"Your losses haven't been that heavy."

"Not at your hands." Mance studied Jon's face. "You saw the Fist of the First Men. You know what happened there. You know what we are facing."

"The Others . . . "

"They grow stronger as the days grow shorter and the nights colder. First they kill you, then they send your dead against you. The giants have not been able to stand against them, nor the Thenns, the ice river clans, the Hornfoots."

"Nor you?"

"Nor me." There was anger in that admission, and bitterness too deep for words. "Raymun Redbeard, Bael the Bard,Gendel and Gorne, the Horned Lord, they all came south to conquer, but I've come with my tail between my legs to hide behind your Wall." He touched the horn. Again. "If I sound the Horn of Winter, the Wall will fall. Or so the songs would have me believe. There are those among my people who want nothing more . . . "

"But once the Wall is fallen," Dalla said, "what will stop the Others?"

Mance gave her a fond smile. "It's a wise woman I've found. A true queen." He turned back to Jon. "Go back and tell them to open their gate and let us pass. If they do, I will give them the horn, and the Wall will stand until the end of days."

"If you refuse," Mance Rayder said, "Tormund Giantsbane will sound the Horn of Winter three days hence, at dawn."

Jon X, Storm 73

And here we have it: Sounding Joramun's Horn of Winter will wake giants from the earth and bring down the Wall.
 

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 Gilly nodded, cradling the babe against her breast, her eyes welling full of tears. She is going to weep again, Sam realized. It was more than he could take. His swordbelt hung from a peg on the wall, beside the old cracked horn that Jon had given him. He ripped it down and buckled it about him, then swept his black wool cloak about his rounded shoulders, slumped through the door, and clattered down a wooden stair whose steps creaked beneath his weight. The inn had two front doors, one opening on a street and one on a canal. Sam went out through the former, to avoid the common room where the innkeepwas sure to give him the sour eye that he reserved for guests who had overstayed their welcome.

 Samwell III, Feast 26

The Mance may have that big fancy horn, but are you keeping your eyes on the prize?
 

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"Mance knows the haunted forest better than any ranger," Jon had told KingStannis, in his final effort to convince His Grace that the King-Beyond-the-Wall would be of more use to them alive than dead. "He knows Tormund Giantsbane. He has fought the Others. And he had the Horn of Joramunand did not blow it. He did not bring down the Wall when he could have."

Lady Melisandre watched him rise.

. . .

"FREE FOLK! Here stands your king of lies. And here is the horn he promised would bring down the Wall."

Two queen's men brought forth the Horn ofJoramun, black and banded with old gold, eight feet long from end to end. Runes were carved into the golden bands, the writing of the First Men. Joramun had died thousands of years ago, but Mance had found his grave beneath a glacier, high up in theFrostfangs. And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter, and woke giants from the earth.Ygritte had told Jon that Mance never found the horn. She lied, or else Mance kept it secret even from his own.

. . .

"The Horn of Joramun?" Melisandre said. "No. Call it the Horn of Darkness. If the Wall falls, night falls as well, the long night that never ends. It must not happen, will not happen! The Lord of Light has seen his children in their peril and sent a champion to them, Azor Ahai reborn." She swept a hand toward Stannis, and the great ruby at her throat pulsed with light.

. . .

The Horn of Joramun burst into flame.

Jon III, Dance 10

So, the Horn of Winter is destroyed . . . or is it?
 

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Then he heard the horn.

A long low moan, it seemed to hang above the battlements, lingering in the black air, soaking deep into the bones of every man who heard it. All along the castle walls, sentries turned toward the sound, their hands tightening around the shafts of their spears. In the ruined halls and keeps ofWinterfell, lords hushed other lords, horses nickered, and sleepers stirred in their dark corners. No sooner had the sound of thewarhorn died away than a drum began to beat: BOOM doom BOOM doom BOOM doom. And a name passed from the lips of each man to the next, written in small white puffs of breath. Stannis, they whispered,Stannis is here, Stannis is come, Stannis,Stannis, Stannis.

"Do they mean to try and blow our walls down?" japed a Flint when the warhornsounded once again. "Mayhaps he thinks he's found the Horn of Joramun."

A Ghost in Winterfell, Dance 46

This appears to be nothing more than a joke, but the storyteller is redirecting us toward the Horn of Winter.
 

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"You need a bigger gate," Tormundcomplained to Jon with a sour look up at the sky, where a few clouds had blown in. "Too bloody slow this way. Like sucking theMilkwater through a reed. Har. Would that I had the Horn of Joramun. I'd give it a nice toot and we'd climb through the rubble."

"Melisandre burned the Horn of Joramun."

"Did she?" Tormund slapped his thigh and hooted. "She burned that fine big horn, aye. A bloody sin, I call it. A thousand years old, that was. We found it in a giant's grave, and no man o' us had ever seen a horn so big. That must have been why Mance got the notion to tell you it were Joramun's. He wanted you crows to think he had it in his power to blow your bloody Wall down about your knees. But we never found the true horn, not for all our digging. If we had, every kneeler in your Seven Kingdoms would have chunks o' ice to cool his wine all summer."

Jon turned in his saddle, frowning. AndJoramun blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. That huge horn with its bands of old gold, incised with ancient runes had Mance Rayder lied to him, or was Tormund lying now? If Mance' s horn was just a feint, where is the true horn?

Jon XII, Dance 58

Well, that's the $64,000 question. And here's the answer . . .
 

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It has to be Horn Hill, Sam finally decided. Once we reach Oldtown I'll hire a wagon and some horses and take her there myself.

 Samwell V, Feast 45

It's on its way to Horn Hill! 

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