Moat Cailin and the Neck

[James Steller]

This is something I just realized while re examining the layout and history of the North. Apparently Moat Cailin has been held by the Starks multiple times in their history against invasions from the south. But how did those invading armies ever reach Moat Cailin, let alone besiege it?

To get to Moat Cailin you need to cross the entire length of the Neck. Hell, you'd pass by Greywater Watch before you ever even saw Moat Cailin. 

Time and again we are told of the natural defences of the Neck and how the crannogmen use them all to make the Neck virtually impenetrable, save for the Kingsroad. But the Kingsroad wasn't built until the time of the Targaryens.

So before the Kingsroad, how did any invading forces make it through the Neck to attack Moat Cailin? With all the ways a person could die in the Neck, the army would be demoralized and decimated by the time they reached the fortress. If any of them ever managed to reach it.

[aryagonnakill#2]

There was likely a rough path before the Kingsroad.  It was probably improved by the Targs.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

The crannogmen weren't always Stark loyalists. Sure, they wouldn't like a bunch of southrons invading their homeland, but if it became clear that they were after the North, and not the Neck, they could just sit back and let them blunder around till they either wised up and retreated or died.

[TheSovereignGrave]

Perhaps one of the reasons why Moat Cailin has always been held against southern invaders is because by the time the enemy armies reached it they'd already been bled by attacks from Crannogmen.

1 hour ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

The crannogmen weren't always Stark loyalists. Sure, they wouldn't like a bunch of southrons invading their homeland, but if it became clear that they were after the North, and not the Neck, they could just sit back and let them blunder around till they either wised up and retreated or died.

Well Moat Cailin was held by the Marsh Kings prior to House Reed being subjugated by the Starks. And they're not liable to take kindly to any kind of southerners just blundering their way through their lands.

[James Steller]

9 hours ago, TheSovereignGrave said:

Perhaps one of the reasons why Moat Cailin has always been held against southern invaders is because by the time the enemy armies reached it they'd already been bled by attacks from Crannogmen

No doubt, but my question is how an army could actually get as far as Moat Cailin at all. By all accounts it's nigh impenetrable if you aren't on the Kingsroad. And an army's supplies would quickly get bogged down or sabotaged by the elements or the animals or the crannogmen. 

[Nyrhex]

It's myth. The Starks of Winterfell waged wars with the Crannogmen for ages.

Consider that house Frey is only 600 years old.

Consider that the Frey kings tried to take over Greywater Watch from the Marsh kings.

Consider that the last Marsh king died by the hand of a King of Winter.

Consider that the King's Road is the muddy rough path, the only way Robb managed to get 18,000 to pass through was because his van had to go and lay logs and planks on the mudd to get his men to pass through that mess. And the locals were friendly to him. One can only assume that if this is the new road, the old one never existed aside of a general direction to travel by small boats. Trade is practically non-existant in the area, with the locals mostly keeping for themselves, and any trade caravan needing significant logistics to make it through. Better to just ship stuff in from White Harbor.

Moat Cailin had held off attacks from Crannogmen. The Freys are the most northern house in the Riverlands, and never made it that far, nor have any house in the Riverlands before them. The armies it held off were of local Crannogmen at best. When it was built by the First Men, the armies it held off were those of the Children of the Forst. It has no reason to exist when the Children are gone and the locals are Stark bannermen. An enemy force arriving from the south would suffer hell first. This is why the castle is abandoned, there is practically no reason to keep it garrisoned in any reasonable scenario. The castle has no good view to the west, so the Ironmen could actually surprise them, and 2 of the remaining towers could not even offer aid to the western one as it is attacked. So clearly this never stopped an Ironborn invasion.

 

I think it's clear that Moat Cailin's reputation as holding off invasions if the product of a long history mixing myth and propaganda. It just does not make sense that it held off many invasions, if any.

[Melisandre's White Pubes]

I think it protected the Marsh Kings from the Starks and other Northerners for most of it's history.

[direpupy]

1 hour ago, Nyrhex said:

Consider that the Frey kings tried to take over Greywater Watch from the Marsh kings.

 

Frey kings? they where never kings, do you mean Riverkings perhaps.

[Nyrhex]

1 hour ago, Melisandre's White Pubes said:

I think it protected the Marsh Kings from the Starks and other Northerners for most of it's history.

It only defends to the south...

1 minute ago, direpupy said:

Frey kings? they where never kings, do you mean Riverkings perhaps.

Correction, not kings, as by that point the Riverlands were ruled by Ironborn. But the Freys are specifically mentioend as trying to invade. Since it's unlikely that a single Riverlands house would try and take over a part of the Kingdom of the North, this must have been before the Starks took over. Perhaps it was even why the Starks finally managed to take over, with the Crannogmen occupied in the south at the same time.

[direpupy]

7 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

 

Correction, not kings, as by that point the Riverlands were ruled by Ironborn. But the Freys are specifically mentioend as trying to invade. Since it's unlikely that a single Riverlands house would try and take over a part of the Kingdom of the North, this must have been before the Starks took over. Perhaps it was even why the Starks finally managed to take over, with the Crannogmen occupied in the south at the same time.

I don't remember that to be honest when was this mentioned?

I don't think it fits the northern timeline for when they took over the neck, but certainly southern invasion would have chipped away at the defences of the crannogmen which could have been to the advantage of the house Stark.

[Nyrhex]

49 minutes ago, direpupy said:

I don't remember that to be honest when was this mentioned?

I don't think it fits the northern timeline for when they took over the neck, but certainly southern invasion would have chipped away at the defences of the crannogmen which could have been to the advantage of the house Stark.

“My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester.”
“Who keeps your ravens?”
She smiled. “Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.”
“Why not?”
“Because it moves,” she told him.

....

Theon dared not admit defeat. "We'll return to the brook. Search again. This time we'll go as far as we must."

"We won't find them," the Frey boy said suddenly. "Not so long as the frogeaters are with them. Mudmen are sneaks, they won't fight like decent folks, they skulk and use poison arrows. You never see them, but they see you. Those who go into the bogs after them get lost and never come out. Their houses move, even the castles like Greywater Watch." He glanced nervously at greenery that encircled them on all sides. "They might be out there right now, listening to everything we say."

The world book says that the Marsh Kings used the castle to defend the North against southern invaders, but I think that's mostly propaganda. There does not seem to be any lord in any rush to get to the Neck, let alone trying to invade the North through it. I think this tale was born from the mystery of a large castle in the middle of nowhere. The Freys have tried and learned that it's no good to try and capture the Neck, as the Crannogmen and thier holdings move. It would only be after the Conquest that a muddy road would be established, but it's clear that no real force can march through the Neck at the best of times without already having the Crannogmen on thier side, as any work to lay a makeshift log-and-plank road for the transportation of a meaningful army and supplies would suffer from the Bog Devils long before it reaches the other side.

 

Sam and some maesters touch on this issue, the history of Westeros is very problematic, timelines don't fit, and anachronism is rampant. It's entirely possible that the castle was built by the First Men against the Children, and was abandoned after the last Children were banished by the Starks of Winterfell beyond the Wall.

[direpupy]

36 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

“My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester.”
“Who keeps your ravens?”
She smiled. “Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.”
“Why not?”
“Because it moves,” she told him.

....

Theon dared not admit defeat. "We'll return to the brook. Search again. This time we'll go as far as we must."

"We won't find them," the Frey boy said suddenly. "Not so long as the frogeaters are with them. Mudmen are sneaks, they won't fight like decent folks, they skulk and use poison arrows. You never see them, but they see you. Those who go into the bogs after them get lost and never come out. Their houses move, even the castles like Greywater Watch." He glanced nervously at greenery that encircled them on all sides. "They might be out there right now, listening to everything we say."

The world book says that the Marsh Kings used the castle to defend the North against southern invaders, but I think that's mostly propaganda. There does not seem to be any lord in any rush to get to the Neck, let alone trying to invade the North through it. I think this tale was born from the mystery of a large castle in the middle of nowhere. The Freys have tried and learned that it's no good to try and capture the Neck, as the Crannogmen and thier holdings move. It would only be after the Conquest that a muddy road would be established, but it's clear that no real force can march through the Neck at the best of times without already having the Crannogmen on thier side, as any work to lay a makeshift log-and-plank road for the transportation of a meaningful army and supplies would suffer from the Bog Devils long before it reaches the other side.

 

Sam and some maesters touch on this issue, the history of Westeros is very problematic, timelines don't fit, and anachronism is rampant. It's entirely possible that the castle was built by the First Men against the Children, and was abandoned after the last Children were banished by the Starks of Winterfell beyond the Wall.

It only says they go after them into the bogs, not that they are trying to conquer the neck. I don't disagree with you entirely but i am not fully convinced either, so i will for now keep an open mind without choosing one side or they other on this subject until we get more information in future books.

[Clegane'sPup]

20 hours ago, James Steller said:

This is something I just realized while re examining the layout and history of the North. Apparently Moat Cailin has been held by the Starks multiple times in their history against invasions from the south. But how did those invading armies ever reach Moat Cailin, let alone besiege it?

To get to Moat Cailin you need to cross the entire length of the Neck. Hell, you'd pass by Greywater Watch before you ever even saw Moat Cailin. 

Time and again we are told of the natural defences of the Neck and how the crannogmen use them all to make the Neck virtually impenetrable, save for the Kingsroad. But the Kingsroad wasn't built until the time of the Targaryens.

So before the Kingsroad, how did any invading forces make it through the Neck to attack Moat Cailin? With all the ways a person could die in the Neck, the army would be demoralized and decimated by the time they reached the fortress. If any of them ever managed to reach it.

I can’t speak to ancient Westeros history so I will stick to modern Westeros history <chuckle>. I think of the Neck as looking something like The Great Dismal Swamp or the Louisiana bayou. I would not travel into either of them without a very learned guide. I cannot describe them you have to see them. There are some good pictures on the internet.

There is a causeway (example would be Lake Pontchartrain) that runs through the Neck. When that causeway was built I don’t know.

Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth. GoT Sansa I

According to ancient Westeros history there were twenty towers at Moat Cailin, but now there are only three crumbling towers. That doesn’t really matter because if an army is marching the causeway through the swampy Neck they would be easy pickings.

"Gods have mercy," Ser Brynden exclaimed when he saw what lay before them. "This is Moat Cailin? It's no more than a—"

"—death trap," Catelyn finished. "I know how it looks, Uncle. I thought the same the first time I saw it, but Ned assured me that this ruin is more formidable than it seems. The three surviving towers command the causeway from all sides, and any enemy must pass between them. The bogs here are impenetrable, full of quicksands and suckholes and teeming with snakes. To assault any of the towers, an army would need to wade through waist-deep black muck, cross a moat full of lizard-lions, and scale walls slimy with moss, all the while exposing themselves to fire from archers in the other towers." GoT Cat VIII

Reed has sworn bannermen; Blackmyre, Boggs, Cray, Quagg, Fenn, Greengood, and Peat. The people who live in the environment know how to navigate their swamp.

Interestingly the bog devils did have the Ironborn penned down after Victarion leaves Moat Cailin. Roose has Ramsey use Theon/Reek to get the Ironborn to surrender so that Roose, hiding in his posh wagon could travel the causeway and get through the crumbled three towers.

To assault any of the towers (coming from the south) an army would need to wade through waist-deep black muck, cross a moat full of lizard-lions, and scale walls slimy with moss, all the while exposing themselves to fire from archers in the other towers."

What happens when fire lights up peat?

As an aside, I don’t think anyone, except Roose, is interested in trying to conquer the North and the North is large.

"I was starting to think we would never reach Winterfell," Robert complained as they descended. "In the south, the way they talk about my Seven Kingdoms, a man forgets that your part is as big as the other six combined." GoT Eddard I

 

[Dorian Martell]

22 hours ago, James Steller said:

This is something I just realized while re examining the layout and history of the North. Apparently Moat Cailin has been held by the Starks multiple times in their history against invasions from the south. But how did those invading armies ever reach Moat Cailin, let alone besiege it?

To get to Moat Cailin you need to cross the entire length of the Neck. Hell, you'd pass by Greywater Watch before you ever even saw Moat Cailin. 

Time and again we are told of the natural defences of the Neck and how the crannogmen use them all to make the Neck virtually impenetrable, save for the Kingsroad. But the Kingsroad wasn't built until the time of the Targaryens.

So before the Kingsroad, how did any invading forces make it through the Neck to attack Moat Cailin? With all the ways a person could die in the Neck, the army would be demoralized and decimated by the time they reached the fortress. If any of them ever managed to reach it.

The idea is tat the causeway is the only high ground surrounded by a huge disease and predator riddled swamp. The Army would be picked at by guerilla forces on the march and then once they hit the moat, it would require a siege to take. Because of the swamp, the moat can be easily resupplied from the north with weapons and food and people while the invading supply train over the causeway would be harried from the time they left the riverlands all the way to the moat. So, on the north side there is fresh troops, fresh weapons and food. From the south, there will be disease, predators, poisoned arrows, over a very long march. And that is before the siege even starts. 

[FrostyDornishman]

2 hours ago, Dorian Martell said:

The idea is tat the causeway is the only high ground surrounded by a huge disease and predator riddled swamp. The Army would be picked at by guerilla forces on the march and then once they hit the moat, it would require a siege to take. Because of the swamp, the moat can be easily resupplied from the north with weapons and food and people while the invading supply train over the causeway would be harried from the time they left the riverlands all the way to the moat. So, on the north side there is fresh troops, fresh weapons and food. From the south, there will be disease, predators, poisoned arrows, over a very long march. And that is before the siege even starts. 

This.  The causeway is the predecessor of the Kingsroad.  From Theon's Dance chapter at Moat Cailin, we're given an excellent description of the layout on every side of the Moat.  You have to go up the causeway, and the Moat plugs up its northern end like a cork in a bottle.

The causeway runs along the western edge of the Neck, well away from where Greywater Watch supposedly is.  So the causeway forces you through swamp, sure, but not through the heart of the Neck.  You'll get ambushed and poisoned and demoralized while you march towards Moat Cailin, but if you have the numbers you'll make it.  Then you'll get crushed at the Moat.

[Red Man Racey]

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 10:48 AM, Nyrhex said:

“My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester.”
“Who keeps your ravens?”
She smiled. “Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.”
“Why not?”
“Because it moves,” she told him.

....

Theon dared not admit defeat. "We'll return to the brook. Search again. This time we'll go as far as we must."

"We won't find them," the Frey boy said suddenly. "Not so long as the frogeaters are with them. Mudmen are sneaks, they won't fight like decent folks, they skulk and use poison arrows. You never see them, but they see you. Those who go into the bogs after them get lost and never come out. Their houses move, even the castles like Greywater Watch." He glanced nervously at greenery that encircled them on all sides. "They might be out there right now, listening to everything we say."

The world book says that the Marsh Kings used the castle to defend the North against southern invaders, but I think that's mostly propaganda. There does not seem to be any lord in any rush to get to the Neck, let alone trying to invade the North through it. I think this tale was born from the mystery of a large castle in the middle of nowhere. The Freys have tried and learned that it's no good to try and capture the Neck, as the Crannogmen and thier holdings move. It would only be after the Conquest that a muddy road would be established, but it's clear that no real force can march through the Neck at the best of times without already having the Crannogmen on thier side, as any work to lay a makeshift log-and-plank road for the transportation of a meaningful army and supplies would suffer from the Bog Devils long before it reaches the other side.

 

Sam and some maesters touch on this issue, the history of Westeros is very problematic, timelines don't fit, and anachronism is rampant. It's entirely possible that the castle was built by the First Men against the Children, and was abandoned after the last Children were banished by the Starks of Winterfell beyond the Wall.

At no point did the Frey boy ever indicate that it was Freys who had gone into the bogs to chase the crannogmen. He's simply retelling stories he's heard others tell which in turn were rumors that others had heard and so on. It could have been any southerner that went "into the bogs after them". Additionally, the Marsh Kings were eliminated a long, long time ago. From the Wiki:

Quote

Thousands of years ago,[3] Rickard Stark, the King in the North, killed the last of the Marsh Kings and married his daughter, thus annexing the Neck to the realm of Winterfell

The reference for "thousands of years" is Chapter 21 (Bran 3) from Clash of Kings.

[Free Northman Reborn]

I don't see the controversy here. What is actually being contested in this discussion?

The history seems pretty clear. The Neck has been inhabited by the Crannogmen since the Dawn Age. The Marsh Kings ruled this area until around 3000-4000 years ago, when Jon Stark's son, Rickard Stark, conquered the Neck and married the Marsh King's daughter. This was the son of the Jon Stark who built the Wolf's Den, which helps us place this point in time.

The history says that even before the North was united under the Starks, the Marsh Kings would periodically join with the Red Kings or the Kings of Winter to repel any southron invaders, signifying some kind of religious or strategic alliance between them.

In any case, all of this happened long before the Frey's were around. It is clear that the Freys and the Crannogmen are hereditary enemies, and no doubt have been since the Freys were first granted their lands around the Crossing. Likely this conflict predates the Freys, and extends back to the earliest of times, between the Crannogmen and whichever Rivermen lived in the lands currently ruled by the Freys. As neighbours who are quite different from each other, the Crannogmen and Rivermen have likely been enemies forever. No doubt the Crannogmen raid the richer Riverlands from time to time, only to melt back into their impenetrable bogs again once pursued. So the enmity displayed by the Freys towards the Crannogmen is not surprising at all.

Most likely they have even attempted to launch punitive military expeditions against the Crannogmen in centuries past, only to meet disaster in the bogs and swamps of the Neck.

So, in any case, all of this contributes to making Moat Cailin very difficult to assail. As I said, I don't understand the point of contention raised by this thread.

[TheSovereignGrave]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So, in any case, all of this contributes to making Moat Cailin very difficult to assail. As I said, I don't understand the point of contention raised by this thread.

I think the point is that how can Moat Cailin have a reputation as some kind of unassailable fortress when it seems that any sizable army would have major problems even making it to Moat Cailin in the first place, since the army would have to travel all the way through the Neck first.

[Universal Sword Donor]

“There are no knights in the Neck,” said Jojen.
“Above the water,” his sister corrected. “The bogs are full of dead ones, though.”
“That’s true,” said Jojen. “Andals and ironmen, Freys and other fools, all those proud warriors who set out to conquer Greywater. Not one of them could find it. They ride into the Neck, but not back out. And sooner or later they blunder into the bogs and sink beneath the weight of all that steel and drown there in their armor.”

Just to throw some wood on the fire

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Well, "milestone 102.587 with fifteen dead" doesn't roll of the tongue like "Moat Cailin, 5,000 dead on the way in, 10,000 dead while sitting before it and 5,000 dead on the way back out".