Mormonts before Bear Island?

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I can't seem to find any info or speculation on this...

Mormonts are considered an old house, but they only got Bear Island 400-500 years ago, right? They must be older than that to be considered "old" in Westeros. So...where did they live before that?

 

[aryagonnakill#2]

Your confusing when they got Longclaw with when they got Bear Island, they've had Bear island for thousands of years.

[Dolorous22]

It's not a dumb question. The island was disputed for a long time. The Iron Born had claimed it at some stage and it changed hands until a Stark gave it to the Mormonts. They have/had a VS sword, so we may hear more regarding their ancestry from Jorah or perhaps the She-bear.  

I lean towards wildlings as they have a strong tradition of warrior women. According to the wiki, the gates to their semi-canonical seat of 'morment keep' has a carving of a woman in a bear-skin, suckling a babe in one arm and carrying an axe in the other. 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

I'm not confusing with the reception of Longclaw, just giving an approximate time of when Rodrik Stark would have given them the island. It's hard to estimate--maybe a few generations before Aegon's Landing? So that would be closer to 400 years, I guess, maybe less. The Stark who gave them the island is near Torhen Stark in the crypt, so not too far removed in time.

 

Anyway...I did consider wildlings, since there are a lot of skinchanging references with the Mormonts--and the warrior women tradition, of course--but wildlings don't have houses. Mormonts are said to be an "old" house. Which seems to imply they had a seat of some kind. Perhaps they were a mountain clan?

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

And the way it's phrased it doesn't sound like they repatriated Bear Island after being driven out earlier, but rather that they got it for the first time ~400 years ago. Woodfoots had it before the Ironborn took it.

[Jak Scaletongue]

They *possibly* could have been bannermen to a much stronger lord before they were given an entire island.  Maybe, kind of, like the Glovers (but even lesser; more like the Forresters in the game) - a "knightly" or "master" house before becoming the Lords of Bear Island? [I know the North doesn't have "knights" or "knightly" houses - it's a comparison to the knightly houses of the South]

 

I like the wildling idea, too - but like Blind Beth points out, they don't really have houses...but that doesn't mean there wasn't some intermarrying with wildling women (captured wildling raiders and/or raiding for wildling captives), introducing the warrior women culture into an "old" Northern house that is very close geographically to the wildlings (without a Wall separating them - just water, which is easy enough to deal with).

[Arrow of the Morning]

May be they were a minor noble house in the North (like the Cassels and the Pooles) and gained the island for their loyalty.

[Cagey Bee]

Anyway...I did consider wildlings, since there are a lot of skinchanging references with the Mormonts--and the warrior women tradition, of course--but wildlings don't have houses. Mormonts are said to be an "old" house. Which seems to imply they had a seat of some kind. Perhaps they were a mountain clan?

Well, the Wildlings do not have Houses, correct.. but two things of note.

1). Gerrick Kingsblood is related to Raymun Readbeard.. so they do at least keep some sort of track.. at least sometime.

2). Thenns. We can safely assume they hold to lineage rules, they have "Lords, after a fashion."

Not saying it's a lock that the Mormonts are descended from Wildlings, but I like the idea myself.

[Cagey Bee]

Jorah's description (ugly and hairy) makes me want to say giants... but that's more hope than belief.

[Jon Fossoway]

Good question and fair points. Mormonts seems to take some wildling influence, the island is neatly close to the Wall. The Umbers, another House close to the Wall, also live "on guard": Mors daughter got kidnapped by wildlings. My guess is that they were a far northern House, living in harsh conditions, probably much closer to the Umbers. The known Mormont characters share some physical resemblances with them too.

[naseridrl]

The name always made me think they may have started out as a mountain clan.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Hm, I like the Umber connection. Mors Umber really likes his bearskin cloak.

And if they were living in harsh conditions a naturally lush island might have looked very nice, even if it didn't have much of monetary value on it.

It's interesting, and perhaps an overlooked credit to Jorah, that despite the house poverty he never seemed to even consider selling Longclaw.

[hiemal]

I could see them as them as coming from the Hill Tribes- particularly some of the shore clans that already had grudges against the iron islanders.

[Curled Finger]

Hm, I like the Umber connection. Mors Umber really likes his bearskin cloak.

And if they were living in harsh conditions a naturally lush island might have looked very nice, even if it didn't have much of monetary value on it.

It's interesting, and perhaps an overlooked credit to Jorah, that despite the house poverty he never seemed to even consider selling Longclaw.

I agree it is a testament to Jorah's at least familial sense of honor that he didn't sell Long Claw.  Since you bring this up I'd like to know what you think about Jeor Mormont possessing Long Claw at the Wall.  Jorah certainly possessed Long Claw when he assumed head of the Mormont family, but at some point that sword was returned to Jeor at the Wall.   It is my belief that in doing so coupled with the vows to forsake his family Jeor essentially gave Long Claw to the NW.  (Presumably to become the sword of all the LCs to come--or something to that effect)  I believe the shield hall contains the shields of all the knights who served and their stuff was not returned to their families.   Do you have an opinion on this? 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Yeah, it's interesting that the sword didn't just pass to Maege, her being the ruler of Bear Island by that point.

 

Full disclosure, my real motive for poking into this is a crackpotty version of the Longclaw=Lighbringer theory. For various reasons I've begun thinking there were 2 magic swords during the Long Night, at that time called Ice and Lightbringer. That Ice was the once & future Dawn. To me the most likely candidate for Lightbringer is Longclaw.

But we know Dawn has an ancient history of some kind, whereas all we know of Longclaw is Mormonts had it for 500 years. So the only way it has an ancient history is if someone else had it before that and it passed to the Mormonts after thousands of years. Which I think is not too crazy...Momonts have never been wealthy at the level of purchasing their own Valyrian steel sword, which begs the question of how they did get it. So I'm poking into Mormont history to try and piece that together. So far all I'm getting is "yeah it seems really unlikely that they purchased a sword from Valyria 500 years ago since they apparently didn't even live in a very memorable keep at that time."

 

Back to your question...my only relevant thoughts are

1) it would seem appropriate, if the original ice-magic sword is way down in the south, that the original fiery sword would be way up in the north. That we readers encounter it at the Wall--as north as north goes in 7K--, knowing Dawn is at Starfall ("as south as south goes"), might be a hint. So maybe GRRM just engineered an otherwise unlikely passing of the sword just to get it to the Wall for plot purposes.

2) If Longclaw does have an ancient lineage, like Dawn, then it might also have a similar complication of how it gets passed down. Dawn only goes to warriors who are "worthy," not just to the next lord. Maybe Longclaw has a similar condition? Hard to see Maege as not being a worthy warrior, but maybe she is, IDK, too pragmatically minded for Longclaw's taste? Longclaw prefers someone who is all about being a warrior, not just about ruling well and fighting when necessary? So maybe it was just giving Maege weird vibes so she took it to Jeor? In that case, though, it seems it gave Jeor weird vibes, too, since he never used it. Maybe there was more to his decision than just bad memories of Jorah. Maybe ancient lineage mojo was keeping him away from it.

Like I said, crackpotty. :-)

 

As to whether it is now property of the NW rather than House Mormont...yeah, kind of seems so, if not by being given to Jeor then definitely by being given to Jon.

Property of NW members does seem to stay in the brotherhood rather than being sent back to their original families.

[RumHam]

Yeah, it's interesting that the sword didn't just pass to Maege, her being the ruler of Bear Island by that point.

I think Maege would have been within her rights to keep the sword. Just speculating, but I suspect she sent it to her brother out of kindness/sympathy for the dishonor Jorah caused. She could have written Jeor saying "Your son fled to the east, but at least had honor enough to leave Longclaw. I'm keeping it." 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Yes, I agree. In fact I think the usual thing to do with an ancestral sword would be for the current head of the house to keep it, especially since Mormont women are trained to use arms.

Curled Finger makes a good point that in giving the sword back to Jeor, Mage was essentially giving it to the Night's Watch. Which is a really odd thing to do with an ancestral sword, TBH.

 

So basically, how the Mormonts got the sword is mysterious and why they got rid of it is also very mysterious. I mean you would not catch a Tarley sending Heartsbane to the wall. The Royce from the prolog sure didn't bring Lamentation with him. Even the Starks, who have been sending sons to the wall for centuries, have never sent Ice along.

Curiouser and curiouser...

[hiemal]

Spitball: Longclaw did not come to the Wall with Jeor, but with BR. It is actually Dark Sister and Jeor simply lied about its origins. He remade the pommel for Jon- perhaps it was remade with a bear for him.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Interesting. 

Does Jorah tell us about Longclaw? Or does Maege mention it? Or do we only hear about it from Jeor?

[hiemal]

As far as I know, it's only Jeor.

Bah, now I am doubting myself. Did Jorah mention leaving Longclaw behind as he fled into exile? When did Jeor join the NW? It feels like an elegant solution to me, in that it answers two questions: why would the Mormonts allow Longclaw to go the NW if it was ancestral and where is Dark Sister.

I do not consider "Mormont women prefer axes" to be a satisfactory answer.