Skinchanger Zombies: Jon, the Last Hero, and Coldhands

[Bluetiger]

So... Sigmund is father of Sigurd (dragonslayer prominently featured in Wagner's Gotterdammerung and Ring of Nibelungs and JRRT's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun)

"In the Völsunga saga, Sigurd is supposedly the posthumous son of Sigmund and his second wife, Hiordis. Sigmund dies in battle when he attacks Odin (who is in disguise), and Odin shatters Sigmund's sword. Dying, Sigmund tells Hiordis of her pregnancy and bequeaths the fragments of his sword to his unborn son"

indeed, Sigmund dies when god shatters his sword - this story seems quite similar to forging of Lightbringer - but this time father dies, not the mother - but that doesn't matter as Sigurd is both of his parents at the same time.

That Sinfjotli is son of Sigmund and his sister Signy - she was married to some king, but neither one loved each other, so she seeked comfort in her brother's arms ... Now, where we have seen that before?

'

The first Signy is the daughter of KingVölsung. She was married to the villainousGeatish king Siggeir who has her whole family treacherously murdered, except for her brother Sigmund. She saves her brother, has an incestuous affair with him and bears the son Sinfjötli. She burnt herself to death with her hated husband.

The second Signy is the daughter of KingSiggeir's nephew Sigar. She fell in love with the Sea-King Hagbard, and promised him that she would not live if he died. They were discovered and Hagbard was sentenced to be hanged. Hagbard managed to signal this to Signy who set her house on fire and died in the flames whereupon Hagbard hanged himself in the gallows'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signý?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund?wprov=sfla1

I found all of this by chance , while researching Norse mythology to add more symbolism to my own characters - - and I had Sir Sygmond, so I looked up at all meanings of that name.

Btw, apart from J.Campbell's works, which books and essays on the topic of symbolism and mythology you reccomend?

I've recently finished 'The Northmen's Fury. A history of the Viking World' by Philip Parker, and soon 'The Vikings and Their Enemies: Warfare in Northern Europe, 750–1100' by Philip Line should arrive... I've started Ivanhoe in English as well, but apart from Anglo-Saxon and Norse (+obviously Polish) cultures I'm nowhere as good at mythology & symbolism as I'd want to be.

Another thing... I've just noticed: Bran wanted to become a knight, a 'ser'. Instead he became a 'seer'.

[cgrav]

Njal's Saga, Prose & Poetic Edda, and Song of Roland are some of the most prominent works of the era, and are heavily referenced in by Martin (and more literally by Tolkien). They're all pretty dense and packed with complex familia relations and characters with multiple names and appearances (who is Loki this time?). Njal's is structured quite a bit like ASoIF, with a big story reset right  in the middle, like the Red Wedding.

Those three tomes ought to be provide a decent knowledge base for medieval European folklore and mythology. Plenty of other classics out there, but I'm not as familiar with them. 

 

And slightly unrelated, @LmL, I recall you fretting in this thread or the other about the dragon colors, black white and green, and I realized that White and green are associations of the Others and CoTF, with black belonging to fire/dragons generally. Fire, ice, and life. Life is the result of the yin and yang being in balance. The color symbolism is thus consistent, as life exists between the two extremes. 

[Bluetiger]

I honestly don't understand why such things are not taught at school... Like, wth... Here there is even a special subjects called 'Knowledge of Culture', and each week I have 5 Polish & literature lessons... Yet Norse mythology, in fact no mythology except Greek (and Roman) is never mentioned...

And than they wonder why so many people don't read books - and why would they do that if they don't understand methaphors, context, symbolism, archetypes? If sb mentions Odin, Loki, Thor, Ragnarok they'll think about Marvel, not myths...

They barely know where Adam's apple and snake symbolism comes from...

And writers... How young, future writers will continue this tradition if they don't even know about it... 

Well...

Let's hope that GRRM's genius is understood and widely known some day, and that sb will be inspired by ASOIAF and continue to carry this ancient torch.

[LmL]

2 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

I honestly don't understand why such things are not taught at school... Like, wth... Here there is even a special subjects called 'Knowledge of Culture', and each week I have 5 Polish & literature lessons... Yet Norse mythology, in fact no mythology except Greek (and Roman) is never mentioned...

And than they wonder why so many people don't read books - and why would they do that if they don't understand methaphors, context, symbolism, archetypes? If sb mentions Odin, Loki, Thor, Ragnarok they'll think about Marvel, not myths...

They barely know where Adam's apple and snake symbolism comes from...

And writers... How young, future writers will continue this tradition if they don't even know about it... 

Well...

Let's hope that GRRM's genius is understood and widely known some day, and that sb will be inspired by ASOIAF and continue to carry this ancient torch.

And THAT is exactly what motivates me to do my podcast and blog. That, exactly. It's very important that people learn the art of symbolic art, and martin is teaching a master course here... I just want to do my part to turn people on to it. 

My #1 recommendation on mythology reading, far and away, is Hamlet's Mill, which I consider to be the most important work  of comparative mythology not written by Joseph Campbell, and perhaps as important as his works. It's a groundbreaking work written in 1969 by a couple of scientists which focuses on archaeoastronomy, essentially another name for mythical astronomy. It's almost too amazing to even try to sum up. 

After that, I recommend the major works of Graham Hancock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods, the sequel to that one which just came out (Fingerprints 2), Heaven's Mirror, etc. He is more focused on monument as a starting point but deals with the astronomical myth very well.  

[Pain killer Jane]

14 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

So you're saying the Starks are the shepherds of the trees?

The Wolfswood. Which is interesting, since according to Bear hunting taboos, the Bear is the protector and shepherd of the woods. 

 

14 hours ago, LmL said:

Ravenous, I didn't mean that bran was the moon in that equation. I meant that the cave of night where the sun hides is a reference to the idea of a sun going underground at night time – and that is what Bran is. 

I always figured the first part of Bran's life was the Icarus myth combined with the star Vega being a 'falling eagle'.  

[Pain killer Jane]

So @LmL I decided to move our convo of soiled knights to here from Pateron.

Quote

There is something I wanted to run by you. The Soiled Knight theme is embedded in this as well. Maester Cressen notes that the gargoyles are covered in raven shit wouldn't they be gradually made white like the snowmen knights on the battlements of Winterfell and thus be akin to the Snow Knight-Others?

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Lucifer means Lightbringer

Hmm.... Are you suggesting that fiery folk became soiled, and in doing so, became Others? I know that Arys is the soiled knight, and he's a white knight also (KG = Others). He is acting out the ice moon role, I believe, getting soiled by a fire moon meteor offspring (Arianne). When Areo (the arm of the solar king, Doran) kills Arys, it's the same as Arianne "soiling him" - he's getting hit by the sun's fire moon weapons. At least I think that is what is going on. Arianne thinks about being usurped by her younger brother Quentyn (putting her in the Amethyst Empress / fire moon role). Myrcella is the ice moon here, I am pretty sure, and she (like Arys) is soiled by Arriane ("to crown her is to kill her," she is warned). Darkstar slashing Myrcella is more fire moon striking the ice moon - "dark-star" describes the black fire moon meteors also.

This is what I was going to answer. 

That is essentially what I am saying. It would be a good parallel to Jon Snow, the wolf-dog/burned man scarecrow corn king defender being resurrected by fire magic- possibly with the help of other magic- in order to fight burned/blackened fiery knights covered in fake snow. It isn't a direct 1:1 correlation but it can be a distortion of this  "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18) and inverting the "clean as new fallen snow" saying.And it would further the whole virus/vaccination theme.

And there is a theme of bodily functions being seen as good things, "Tywin shitting gold", "Robb pissing green"(which is supposed to be a bad thing but being green brings abundance and fertility, which in this light, Robb pissing green is basically fertilizing), "Bronn of the Blackwater becoming Lord Stokeworth which provided food for KL before the Tyrells." (And Black water is the label placed on water contaminated with feces and urine.). The hand taking the shit to build when the king dreams. 

@ravenous reader provided the parallel of the snowmen knights on the battlements of Winterfell to the gargoyles and the Others. 

And I like the Arys explanation. But I think the closest parallel was the explanation of Sansa.

On 12/7/2016 at 9:53 AM, LmL said:

No, actually. Sansa is like a piece of fire moon that turns into the ice moon or becomes a part of the ice  moon

 However in the Arys explanation you provided for me, Aero soiling Arys as the arm of the solar king, Doran is most intriguing because it reminded me of Royce IV 'Redarm' Bolton taking out the entrails of his victims. And taking the entrails of people would essentially have that person covered in shit and blood. 
Another thing I am considering is soiled the same as being cursed. But that is another train of thought. 

[ravenous reader]

20 hours ago, LmL said:

Let's run with the idea of the weirwoods as a fish garth for a minute. A fishing weir or fishgarth is for trapping fish. What are the weirwoods trapping? The greenseers, right? But what's the point? What do the weirwoods gain by trapping a few greenseers?

• perhaps by converting a few humans to the 'green' / pro-nature way of thinking, and making those humans powerful, they gain allies among their 'enemies' which they can use to regulate all humanity
• perhaps the weirwoods are gaining something from the greenseers they could not have otherwise  - what could this be? Corn, right? Vitality, life force, sentience? What about this - what about trees bodysnatching people? Take Jon's "direwolf soul jar" process and swap out a weirwood - might not some of the weirwoodnet consciousness come along with the resurrected greenseer back into he resurrected body, just as some (or all) of Ghost might come with Jon? 
• what if the original greenseers trapped in the weirwoodnet were dangerous in way we don't understand, and the weirwoods were containing them? remember that a weirwood is a garthwood. Are the original horned lords trapped in the weirwoodnet? Did their conciseness create the weirwoodnet? Did they become the trees to give them faces? 
• separate idea - the weirwoods are not trapping greenseers. They are trapping black meteors ickiness. The black meteors are like a poison snake bite - look at Asshai. Look at Yeen. The oily stone is an inversion of the life seed - it's poison. Perhaps the weirwoodnet is transmuting that poison somehow. Remember, the most important weir is the one at Wintefell, which is defined in part by it's cold black pond. It's the black in the red, black, white color scheme. Alternately, the black crows in the dark caves beneath the tree represent black as well. 
• ETA: fishgarths are for trapping fish. Does this mean deep ones? Sea dragons? Asshai people coming by sea? Or is the fish part not important, just the trap part...

Trees as zombies and bodysnatchers.

What do you think this means:

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A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

"To the walls," Asha Greyjoy told her men. She turned her own steps for the watchtower, with Tris Botley right behind her.

The wooden watchtower was the tallest thing this side of the mountains, rising twenty feet above the biggest sentinels and soldier pines in the surrounding woods. "There, Captain," said Cromm, when she made the platform. Asha saw only trees and shadows, the moonlit hills and the snowy peaks beyond. Then she realized that trees were creeping closer. "Oho," she laughed, "these mountain goats have cloaked themselves in pine boughs." The woods were on the move, creeping toward the castle like a slow green tide. She thought back to a tale she had heard as a child, about the children of the forest and their battles with the First Men, when the greenseers turned the trees to warriors.

How do you think that works 'turning the trees to warriors'?  

2 hours ago, cgrav said:

And slightly unrelated, @LmL, I recall you fretting in this thread or the other about the dragon colors, black white and green, and I realized that White and green are associations of the Others and CoTF, with black belonging to fire/dragons generally. Fire, ice, and life. Life is the result of the yin and yang being in balance. The color symbolism is thus consistent, as life exists between the two extremes. 

How would this classification -- black, white, green -- map onto your other 'Trident' one -- red, blue, green?  If 'life' is in the middle, shouldn't the middle fork of the trident be the green one?

Also, it's interesting that in the quote I think you're referencing, all three colors -- black, white, and green -- accompany the Others, which means the Others contain an element of Fire according to your suggested symbolic classification:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.

Hey @LmL, btw I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the Donniger sigil you mentioned recently.  Note, here again the 'deep grey-green' sea/see symbolism.  Perhaps House Donniger is a nod from GRRM (he tends to play word games recognising fellow writers he appreciates in his sigils) to the religious scholar Wendy Doniger, whose specialty is writing on Hinduism.  She wrote a classic book on Shiva, synthesizing the well-known ascetic aspects with the neglected erotic (in your words 'sanitized' the way 'Satan/Wild Man' was split off from 'Santa/Old Nick').  You might enjoy reading up on her, if you haven't already; she loves comparative mythology!

[Bluetiger]

Shame I never had enough time to complete my analysis of sigils ;/

Here's what I posted in some Astronomy thread in July:

Quote

Heraldry supports the Astronomy of Ice and Fire:

 

I’ve noticed that many sigils can be hints from George - hints about events of the Dawn Age, Lightbringer, Azor Ahai and other things connected to it.

 

So, let’s begin with sigils that directly relate to astronomy - arms showing suns, moons and stars.

 

Thanks to authors of Wiki’s list of coat of arms and list of personal arms.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/List_of_personal_arms

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/List_of_houses

 

The Vale of Arryn

 

House Donniger’s http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/List_of_houses

sigil shows ‘red sun rising from a grey-green sea against a yellow sky’ - the sun rises from the sea, being reborn, just like Azor Ahai was supposedly reborn and in Christianity yellow is colour associated with easter, rebirth and Resurrection, however it has also negative meaning - symbolizing betrayal - Judas Iscariot is often dressed in yellow robes on paintings. Normally I wouldn’t assume that George would even think about this meaning - but Judas’s story is major plotpoint in GRRM’s ‘The Way of Cross and Dragon’ short story.

Donniger surname seems to be reference to Wendy Doniger, an American Indologist who wrote books about mythology - Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva; Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts - name few. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Doniger

In Hinduism yellow is colour of Krishna…

Grey is of course color of ashes, and green is color of rebirth, spring, joy - but also dragons.

 

House Upcliff - cresting wave, sea green on black - seems to refer to something falling into the sea during night and creating waves.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Upcliff

 

We should remember that House Upcliff is from Witch Isle, located on the seas before Vale of Arryn - an there is another House with seat on island in that area - House Pryor of the Pebble - of course a pebble is a stone, so might symbolise a moon metheor - this Pebble is close to the Mountains of the Moon. http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Pryor

Pryor sigil is very interesting, it shows partial eclipse, black moon over yellow sun, on dusty pink - well…. It might be the most direct hint ever given to us… something important happened when there was a partial eclipse.

 

The unfortunate ser Hugh of the Vale appeared for only half of first AOIAF book, but things his death and sigil show us might be really important.

His sigil is crescent moon on blue, and he dies when Mountain’s lance passes through his throat…

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Hugh

 

House Arryn’s sigil shows a falcon against white moon on blue field - IMO the falcon is not important, the important thing is that something flies from the moon - reference to the moon meteors. Blue is also color of Virgin Mary - nod to Nissa Nissa’s sacrifcie?

 

House Breakstone’s sigil is unknown, but their surname might be reference to breaking of the moon.

 

House Egen http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Egen has yellow sun, white crescent moon, and silver star on blue chief above white as sigil, it might suggest that sun, moon and comet were visible at the same time - during day as the blue-white field below suggests, Ser Vardis Egen was member of this house and during his duel with Bronn he wielded Jon Arryn’s falcon sword - so maybe falcon at Arryn sigil represents the Lightbringer?

 

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Grafton’s sigil is a burning tower in yellow, within a black pile, upon flaming red - so it might reference the fiery storm covering the sky after moon’s destruction or it shows moment when moon was engulfed in flames (stone tower=moon?)

 

House Lynderly’s field of snakes on black http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Lynderly

Might refer to moon-dragon meteors striking Planetos during Long Night.

 

I have no idea what http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Ruthermont

Ruthermont five black starfish on a gold pale, on pean mean….

 

Tollet sigil http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Tollett

And words ‘When All is Darkest’ might refer to the Long Night.

 

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Templeton Templeton sigil are  nine stars, one of 7 points and eight of 6 points, upon a gold saltire on black, and again I don’t think it relates to Astronomy.

 

Waxley’s sigil might refer to meteors being like candles, lighting the Long Night. Their words support this idea ‘Light in Darkness’ http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Waxley

 

Sigil of House Royce of the Gates of the Moon shows moon - behind bars - maybe it’s the second moon hidden during the Long Night? http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Royce_of_the_Gates_of_the_Moon

 

and if sb is unsure whether LML is right in his approach to analysing ASOIAF, here's quote from GRRM novella Nighflyers:

Spoiler

The name was strange to him, but it took Royd only a moment to consult his library computer. "An alien race on the other side of human space, past the Fyndii worlds and the Damoosh. Possibly legendary."

D'Branin chuckled. "Your library is out-of-date. You must supplement it the next time you are on Avalon. Not legends, no, real enough, though far away. We have little information about the Nor T'alush, but we are sure they exist, though you and I may never meet one. They were the start of it all.

"I was coding some information into the, computers, a packet newly arrived from Dam Tullian after twenty standard years in transit. Part of it was Nor T'alush folklore. I had no idea how long that had taken to get to Dam Tullian, or by what route it had come, but it was fascinating material. Did you know that my first degree was in xenomythology?"

"I did not," Royd said. "Please continue."

"The volcryn story was among the Nor T'alush myths. It awed me; a race of sentients moving out from some mysterious origin in the core of the galaxy, sailing towards the galactic edge and, it was alleged, eventually bound for intergalactic space itself, meanwhile keeping always to the interstellar depths, no planetfalls, seldom coming within a light-year of a star. And doing it all without a stardrive, in ships moving only a fraction of the speed of light! That was the detail that obsessed me! Think how old they must be, those ships!"

"Old," Royd agreed. "Karoly, you said ships. More than one?"

 

"Oh, yes, there are," d'Branin said. "According to the Nor T'alush, one or two appeared first, on the innermost edges of their trading sphere, but others followed. Hundreds of them, each solitary, moving by itself, bound outward, always the same. For fifteen thousand standard years they moved between the Nor T'alush stars, and then they began to pass out from among them. The myth said that the last volcryn ship was gone three thousand years ago."

"Eighteen thousand years," Royd said, adding, "are your Nor T'alush that old?"

D'Branin smiled. "Not as star-travellers, no. According to their own histories, the Nor T'alush have only been civilized for about half that long. That stopped me for a while. It seemed to make the volcryn story clearly a legend. A wonderful legend, true, but nothing more.

"Ultimately, however, I could not let it alone. In my spare time, I investigated, cross-checking with other alien cosmologies to see whether this particular myth was shared by any races other than the Nor T'alush. I thought perhaps I would get a thesis out of it. It was a fruitful line of inquiry.

"I was startled by what I found. Nothing from the Hrangans, or the Hrangan slaveraces, but that made sense, you see. They were out from human space, the volcryn would not reach them until after they had passed through our own sphere. When I looked in, however, the volcryn story was everywhere. The Fyndii had it, the Damoosh appeared to accept it as literal truth—and the Damoosh, you know, are the oldest race we have ever encountered—and there was a remarkably similar story told among the gethsoids of Aath. I checked what little was known about the races said to flourish further in still, beyond even the Nor T'alush, and they had the volcryn story too."

"The legend of the legends," Royd suggested. The spectre's wide mouth turned up in a smile.

"Exactly, exactly," d'Branin agreed. "At that point, I called in the experts, specialists from the Institute for the Study of Nonhuman Intelligence. We researched for two years. It was all there, in the files and the libraries at the Academy. No one had ever looked before, or bothered to put it together.

"The volcryn have been moving through the manrealm for most of human history, since before the dawn of spaceflight. While we twist the fabric of space itself to cheat relativity, they have been sailing their great ships right through the heart of our alleged civilization, past our most populous worlds, at stately slow sublight speeds, bound for the Fringe and the dark between the galaxies. Marvelous, Royd, marvelous!"

"Marvelous," Royd agreed.

Karoly d'Branin set down his chocolate cup and leaned forward eagerly towards Royd's projection, but his hand passed through empty light when he tried to grasp his companion by the forearm. He seemed disconcerted for a moment, before he began to laugh at himself. "Ah, my volcryn. I grow overenthused, Royd. I am so close now. They have preyed on my mind for a dozen years, and within a month I will have them. Then, then, if only I can open communication, if only my people can reach them, then at last I will know the why of it!"

 

[Pain killer Jane]

40 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Trees as zombies and bodysnatchers.

Little green men/pod people, if you want to combine the black oily stone that fell from the sky and Naga being an asteroid hit. Then we get aliens and I would say it isn't the little green men but those terrifying black dragon parasites exploding from the chest cavity. 

[Pain killer Jane]

2 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Shame I never had enough time to complete my analysis of sigils ;/

I hate to be that person but I was reading the post you made about Garm being a sword in a tree and I remembered that there is sort of a sigil that supports the sword in the tree. It is House Forrester but the sigil is from the video game Game of Thrones - A Telltale Games Series. So I can't readily point to them and say hey look at that; a black sword embedded on two superimposed trees. 

And it would parallel the Valyrians being sheep herders and finding dragons which are their swords. 

[Bluetiger]

Do you remember Galon White Staff of the Iron Isles? 

Well...

From Wikipedia, pafevabout Norse fenale seers - volvas

Quote

The vǫlur were referred to by many names. Old Norse vǫlva means "wand carrier" or "carrier of a magic staff", and it continuesProto-Germanic *walwōn, which is derived from a word for "wand" (Old Norse vǫlr).Vala, on the other hand, is a literary form based on vǫlva.

Another name for the vǫlva is fjǫlkunnig(plenty of knowing) indicating she knew ‘’seiðr’’, spá and galdr. A practitioner of seiðr is known as a seiðkona "seiðr-woman" or aseiðmaðr "seiðr-man".

A spákona or spækona “spá-woman” (with an Old English cognate, spæwīfe is a specialised vǫlva; a "seer, one who sees", from the Old Norse word spá or spæ referring to prophesying and which is cognate with the present English word "spy," continuing Proto-Germanic *spah- and the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)peḱ (to see, to observe) and consequently related to Latin specio ("I see") 

And:

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As the vǫlva entered the room, she was hailed with reverence by the household, and then she was led to the high seat, where she was provided with dishes prepared only for her. She had a porridge made of goat milk and a dish made of hearts from all the kinds of animals at the homestead. She ate the dishes with a brass spoon and a knife whose point was broken off.

Porridge...

It's  also worth to mention that usually only women  could be seers - magic in general was woman's domain.

 

[Bluetiger]

And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fáfnir?wprov=sfla1

"In the Icelandic Volsunga Saga (late 13th century), Fáfnir is a dwarf with a powerful arm and fearless soul. He guards his father's house of glittering gold and flashing gems. He is the strongest and most aggressive of the three brothers.

Regin recounts to Sigurd how Odin, Loki and Hœnir were traveling when they came across Ótr, who had the likeness of an otter during the day. Loki killed the otter with a stone and the three Æsir skinned their catch. The gods came to Hreidmar’s dwelling that evening and were pleased to show off the otter's skin. Hreidmar and his remaining two sons then seized the gods and held them captive while Loki was made to gather the ransom, which was to stuff the otter’s skin with gold and cover its outside with red gold. Loki fulfilled the task by gathering the cursed gold ofAndvari as well as the ring, Andvaranaut, both of which were told to Loki as items that would bring about the death of whoever possessed them. Fáfnir then killed Hreidmar to get all the gold for himself. He became very ill-natured and greedy, so he went out into the wilderness to keep his fortune, eventually turning into a serpent or dragon (symbol of greed) to guard his treasure. Fáfnir also breathed poison into the land around him so no one would go near him and his treasure, wreaking terror in the hearts of the people.

Regin plotted revenge so that he could get the treasure and sent his foster-son Sigurd to kill the dragon. Regin instructed Sigurd to dig a pit in which he could lie in wait under the trail Fáfnir used to get to a stream and there plunge his sword, Gram, into Fafnir's heart as he crawls over the pit to the water. Regin then ran away in fear, leaving Sigurd to the task. As Sigurd dug, Odin appeared in the form of an old man with a long beard, advising the warrior to dig more trenches for the blood of Fafnir to run into, presumably so that Sigurd does not drown in the blood. The earth quaked and the ground nearby shook as Fafnir appeared, blowing poison into his path as he made his way to the stream. Sigurd, undaunted, stabbed Fafnir in the left shoulder as he crawled over the ditch he was lying in and succeeded in mortally wounding the dragon. As the creature lies there dying, he speaks to Sigurd and asks for his name, his parentage and who sent him on such a dangerous mission. Fafnir figures out that his own brother, Regin, plotted this, and predicts that Regin will also cause Sigurd's death. Sigurd tells Fafnir that he will go back to the dragon's lair and take all his treasure. Fafnir warns Sigurd that all who possess the gold will be fated to die, but Sigurd replies that all men must one day die anyway, and it is the dream of many men to be wealthy until that dying day, so he will take the gold without fear."

A dwarf becomes a dragon after stealing gold...

 

[Bluetiger]

And who exactly is a warg?

In Old Norse vargr means simply 'wolf'.

When this term is used, it usually refers to Fenrir, Skoll or Hati:

And look at this riddle:

What is that lamp

which lights up men,

but flame engulfs it,

and wargs grasp after it always?

 

She lights up every land and shines over all men, and Skoll and Hati are called wargs. Those are wolves, one going before the sun, the other after the moon.

 

Skoll chases sun (Sól), while his brother Hati  the moon (Mani). During Ragnarok wolves will succeed in their hunt and darkness will fall upon the Nine Worlds 

Hati means moon-snatcher.

His mother is a giantess of placevcalled Ironwood.

Hati is god of solar eclipses as well.

 

So warg = a person who snatches rhe moon or sun.

And every warg is a greenseer ...

 

 

Another thing:

In Ring of Nibelungs, when Odin destroyed Siegmunds sword, he used his spear Gungir (a very important item in my world's symbolism) made from World Tree Yggdrasil's wood... Either a weirwood spear (pale demon tree Ygg of Iron Islands) or an ashwood spear (Yggdrasil is ash).

 

 

Btw, I remember you've mentioned House Wynch of Iron Holt...

And a holt is either a woodland or a shelter to survive Fimbulwinter in Norse mythology. Greenseers everywhere, and always near the moon...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoddmímis_holt?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodland?wprov=sfla1

So probably once Iron Islands weren't islands at all... They had trees and greenseers, as Ygg and Galon prove.

 

Also, House Fell of Felwood...

Moon above trees, and connection to falling...

 

Btw, @ravenous reader is your nickname a reference to Odin's wolves Geri and Freki? Their names mean ravenous/greedy.

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

So @LmL I decided to move our convo of soiled knights to here from Pateron.

This is what I was going to answer. 

That is essentially what I am saying. It would be a good parallel to Jon Snow, the wolf-dog/burned man scarecrow corn king defender being resurrected by fire magic- possibly with the help of other magic- in order to fight burned/blackened fiery knights covered in fake snow. It isn't a direct 1:1 correlation but it can be a distortion of this  "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18) and inverting the "clean as new fallen snow" saying.And it would further the whole virus/vaccination theme.

And there is a theme of bodily functions being seen as good things, "Tywin shitting gold", "Robb pissing green"(which is supposed to be a bad thing but being green brings abundance and fertility, which in this light, Robb pissing green is basically fertilizing), "Bronn of the Blackwater becoming Lord Stokeworth which provided food for KL before the Tyrells." (And Black water is the label placed on water contaminated with feces and urine.). The hand taking the shit to build when the king dreams. 

@ravenous reader provided the parallel of the snowmen knights on the battlements of Winterfell to the gargoyles and the Others. 

And I like the Arys explanation. But I think the closest parallel was the explanation of Sansa.

 However in the Arys explanation you provided for me, Aero soiling Arys as the arm of the solar king, Doran is most intriguing because it reminded me of Royce IV 'Redarm' Bolton taking out the entrails of his victims. And taking the entrails of people would essentially have that person covered in shit and blood. 
Another thing I am considering is soiled the same as being cursed. But that is another train of thought. 

...and Sansa has lots of soiled clothing incidents, including dying the Hound's White Cloak green. 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

The Soiled Knight theme is embedded in this as well. Maester Cressen notes that the gargoyles are covered in raven shit wouldn't they be gradually made white like the snowmen knights on the battlements of Winterfell and thus be akin to the Snow Knight-Others?

Harking back to our very first conversation on the lime-washed trees/Gipps wife's stiffened hair and wicker shield:  The raven droppings gradually wash over the gargoyles, until they are covered in a grey-green whitish or silver 'frosting' akin to the lime coating which you mentioned both protects and poisons the trees.  Correspondingly, the silver(ing) symbolism is apt, given the Maester's link signifying the medical arts which as Cressen notes can be both healing and harming.  By the way, a lime wash is also used to prepare the Strangler poison crystals from the plant.

In light of this theme, and how the creation of the Others might be related to the weirwoods, I'll leave you with the following few quotes as food for thought:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

She nodded as the woods grew still around them. In the quiet she could hear them, far off yet moving closer; the tread of many horses, the rattle of swords and spears and armor, the murmur of human voices, with here a laugh, and there a curse.

Eons seemed to come and go. The sounds grew louder. She heard more laughter, a shouted command, splashing as they crossed and recrossed the little stream. A horse snorted. A man swore. And then at last she saw him … only for an instant, framed between the branches of the trees as she looked down at the valley floor, yet she knew it was him. Even at a distance, Ser Jaime Lannister was unmistakable. The moonlight had silvered his armor and the gold of his hair, and turned his crimson cloak to black. He was not wearing a helm.

He was there and he was gone again, his silvery armor obscured by the trees once more. Others came behind him, long columns of them, knights and sworn swords and freeriders, three quarters of the Lannister horse.

This is one of my favorite quotes.  Jaime is 'silvered' -- transformed by 'moon magic' together with 'tree magic' which is mildly threatening (he's been 'framed' by the trees!)-- so that he appears as one of the trees in the Whispering Wood (considering they're 'whispering,' we can infer a great many weirwoods among them).  Accordingly, gold becomes silver (like the bark of a weirwood at night) and red becomes black (like the leaves of a weirwood at night).  Moreover, notice how Jaime's silver armoring is associated with the 'Others'  who are following him.  Symbolically, therefore, Jaime is at the vanguard of the Wild Hunt!  He's also a 'sword without a hilt' in that he's not wearing a 'helm' (a 'helm' is a steering mechanism for a boat, etc. in addition to being the handle of a weapon).

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

Catelyn sat on her horse, unmoving, with Hal Mollen and her guard around her, and she waited as she had waited before, for Brandon and Ned and her father. She was high on the ridge, and the trees hid most of what was going on beneath her. A heartbeat, two, four, and suddenly it was as if she and her protectors were alone in the wood. The rest were melted away into the green.

Yet when she looked across the valley to the far ridge, she saw the Greatjon's riders emerge from the darkness beneath the trees. They were in a long line, an endless line, and as they burst from the wood there was an instant, the smallest part of a heartbeat, when all Catelyn saw was the moonlight on the points of their lances, as if a thousand willowisps were coming down the ridge, wreathed in silver flame.

Then she blinked, and they were only men, rushing down to kill or die.

'Wreathed in silver flame' -- sounds like Dawn and/or the swords of the Others.  'Wreathed' evokes 'wraith' -- the idea of being wrapped in a silvery death shroud, which brings us back to Patchface who tolls the bells for Shireen as she chimes in pronouncing an unwitting death knell on herself, with her desire for a 'gown of silver seaweed' (basically the silver frosting idea in other words):

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Prologue

"In time," Cressen replied. "If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come." The smallfolk said that a long summer meant an even longer winter, but the maester saw no reason to frighten the child with such tales.

Patchface rang his bells. "It is always summer under the sea," he intoned. "The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

Shireen giggled. "I should like a gown of silver seaweed."

"Under the sea, it snows up," said the fool, "and the rain is dry as bone. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

 

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion X

Tyrion covered her mouth with his own. He'd had talk enough; he needed the sweet simplicity of the pleasure he found between Shae's thighs. Here, at least, he was welcome, wanted.

Afterward, he eased his arm out from under her head, slipped on his tunic, and went down to the garden. A half-moon silvered the leaves of the fruit trees and shone on the surface of the stone bathing pond. Tyrion seated himself beside the water. Somewhere off to his right a cricket was chirping, a curiously homey sound. It is peaceful here, he thought, but for how long?

A whiff of something rank made him turn his head. Shae stood in the door behind him, dressed in the silvery robe he'd given her. I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair. Behind her stood one of the begging brothers, a portly man in filthy patched robes, his bare feet crusty with dirt, a bowl hung about his neck on a leather thong where a septon would have worn a crystal. The smell of him would have gagged a rat.

Shae is 'dressed in the silvery robe Tyrion 'gave' her -- foreshadowing that she's destined to die (like Shireen in her 'gown of silver seaweed') at Tyrion's own cold golden hand (another to add to the 'deck of hands'!)

And -- this has just jumped out at me -- we have a restatement of the 'nennymoan' business.  Namely, compare 'I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair' to:

Quote

"The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

Maid as white as winter = NQ=merwives; nennymoans=moonglow which facilitates the 'weaving of the silver seaweed gown'=magic particularly sorcery.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Prologue

His chambers seemed dim and gloomy after the brightness of the morning. With fumbling hands, the old man lit a candle and carried it to the workroom beneath the rookery stair, where his ointments, potions, and medicines stood neatly on their shelves.

Extrapolating to the weirwoods, if the weirwood branches on which the ravens are perching can be compared to a kind of 'rookery stair' which takes them to the top or bottom of the tree, then the 'workroom beneath the rookery stair' would be Bloodraven/Bran/the greenseers' 'hollow hill' filled with weirwood roots in which magic is concentrated, distilled, and amplified, etc.  The 'workroom' of the trees.  The 'maester' or 'alchemist' sacrificing for power -- who is the central figure in the gargoyle trio you identified -- is analogous to the greenseer Odin figure 'hanging himself on the tree.'  Fittingly, the product of the seeds -- namely the Strangler -- literally causes death by suffocation, resulting in the victim's dying 'death rattle'...'oh oh oh...ho ho ho'!

Quote

On the bottom shelf behind a row of salves in squat clay jars he found a vial of indigo glass, no larger than his little finger. It rattled when he shook it. Cressen blew away a layer of dust and carried it back to his table. Collapsing into his chair, he pulled the stopper and spilled out the vial's contents. A dozen crystals, no larger than seeds, rattled across the parchment he'd been reading. They shone like jewels in the candlelight, so purple that the maester found himself thinking that he had never truly seen the color before.

Likewise, I'm just beginning to appreciate the color I've 'never truly seen before' as GRRM's symbolic meanings slowly unfold before my eyes!  Note, the crystals are compared to 'seeds' which 'rattle' -- underscoring that the poison is derived from a plant (=weirwoods) from which sounds issue forth (the weirwoods are known to 'rustle' and 'flutter' among other sounds making up the 'collective' orchestration in their musical repertoire).  Tellingly, the voice of the seeds evokes a death 'rattle', linking the powers of the weirwood to death-- particularly the animation of the dead.

Quote

The chain around his throat felt very heavy.

The maester is figuratively chained to his profession, particularly the inextricable destructive aspects thereof.  He's also chained like a mastiff (Marwyn springs to mind; Bran is a wolf...the hellhound; Bloodraven is the wyvern...the dragon who is not quite a dragon, yet nevertheless extremely voracious and vicious) -- a manifestation of GRRM's trope whereby the hunters become the hunted, predators prey, and masters servants.

Quote

He touched one of the crystals lightly with the tip of his little finger. Such a small thing to hold the power of life and death. It was made from a certain plant that grew only on the islands of the Jade Sea, half a world away.

Jade Sea = green sea/see (I'm beginning to sound like a stuck record, aren't I?)  Bloodraven's hollow in the middle of nowhere -- the endless expanse of snow and ice which itself is a kind of sea -- 'half a world away' can be seen as a kind of island growing the plant holding the power of life and death alike = weirwoods.

Similarly, the godswood at Winterfell, following the sack and burning, is compared to an 'island in the sea of chaos Winterfell had become.'

Quote

The leaves had to be aged, and soaked in a wash of limes and sugar water and certain rare spices from the Summer Isles.

I'm sure you could unpack this one for us @Pain killer Jane !  Note the limes and sugar evoke an ice frosting, like on a cake -- a potentially deadly pie that one!

Quote

Afterward they could be discarded, but the potion must be thickened with ash and allowed to crystallize. The process was slow and difficult, the necessaries costly and hard to acquire. The alchemists of Lys knew the way of it, though, and the Faceless Men of Braavos . . . and the maesters of his order as well, though it was not something talked about beyond the walls of the Citadel. All the world knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of healing—but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill.

Cressen no longer recalled the name the Asshai'i gave the leaf, or the Lysene poisoners the crystal. In the Citadel, it was simply called the strangler. Dissolved in wine, it would make the muscles of a man's throat clench tighter than any fist, shutting off his windpipe. They said a victim's face turned as purple as the little crystal seed from which his death was grown, but so too did a man choking on a morsel of food.

Since Cressen 'no longer recalled the name' of the leaf, we may say that the leaf is nameless --

Indeed, like the 'nameless, faceless' ones, including COTF, greenseers, FM assassins.

Bottom line:  We are talking about the weirwoods and the greenseers (and possibly the Others) here, people!

[LmL]

43 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I hate to be that person but I was reading the post you made about Garm being a sword in a tree and I remembered that there is sort of a sigil that supports the sword in the tree. It is House Forrester but the sigil is from the video game Game of Thrones - A Telltale Games Series. So I can't readily point to them and say hey look at that; a black sword embedded on two superimposed trees. 

And it would parallel the Valyrians being sheep herders and finding dragons which are their swords. 

Nope, nope, I declare that in bounds and legit. Black sword, embedded in a white tee (or twin white trees) - that's a bingo. George loves the heraldry too much - he's involved with all of it. 

[LmL]

51 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Shame I never had enough time to complete my analysis of sigils ;/

Here's what I posted in some Astronomy thread in July:

 

and if sb is unsure whether LML is right in his approach to analysing ASOIAF, here's quote from GRRM novella Nighflyers:

  Reveal hidden contents

The name was strange to him, but it took Royd only a moment to consult his library computer. "An alien race on the other side of human space, past the Fyndii worlds and the Damoosh. Possibly legendary."

D'Branin chuckled. "Your library is out-of-date. You must supplement it the next time you are on Avalon. Not legends, no, real enough, though far away. We have little information about the Nor T'alush, but we are sure they exist, though you and I may never meet one. They were the start of it all.

"I was coding some information into the, computers, a packet newly arrived from Dam Tullian after twenty standard years in transit. Part of it was Nor T'alush folklore. I had no idea how long that had taken to get to Dam Tullian, or by what route it had come, but it was fascinating material. Did you know that my first degree was in xenomythology?"

"I did not," Royd said. "Please continue."

"The volcryn story was among the Nor T'alush myths. It awed me; a race of sentients moving out from some mysterious origin in the core of the galaxy, sailing towards the galactic edge and, it was alleged, eventually bound for intergalactic space itself, meanwhile keeping always to the interstellar depths, no planetfalls, seldom coming within a light-year of a star. And doing it all without a stardrive, in ships moving only a fraction of the speed of light! That was the detail that obsessed me! Think how old they must be, those ships!"

"Old," Royd agreed. "Karoly, you said ships. More than one?"

 

"Oh, yes, there are," d'Branin said. "According to the Nor T'alush, one or two appeared first, on the innermost edges of their trading sphere, but others followed. Hundreds of them, each solitary, moving by itself, bound outward, always the same. For fifteen thousand standard years they moved between the Nor T'alush stars, and then they began to pass out from among them. The myth said that the last volcryn ship was gone three thousand years ago."

"Eighteen thousand years," Royd said, adding, "are your Nor T'alush that old?"

D'Branin smiled. "Not as star-travellers, no. According to their own histories, the Nor T'alush have only been civilized for about half that long. That stopped me for a while. It seemed to make the volcryn story clearly a legend. A wonderful legend, true, but nothing more.

"Ultimately, however, I could not let it alone. In my spare time, I investigated, cross-checking with other alien cosmologies to see whether this particular myth was shared by any races other than the Nor T'alush. I thought perhaps I would get a thesis out of it. It was a fruitful line of inquiry.

"I was startled by what I found. Nothing from the Hrangans, or the Hrangan slaveraces, but that made sense, you see. They were out from human space, the volcryn would not reach them until after they had passed through our own sphere. When I looked in, however, the volcryn story was everywhere. The Fyndii had it, the Damoosh appeared to accept it as literal truth—and the Damoosh, you know, are the oldest race we have ever encountered—and there was a remarkably similar story told among the gethsoids of Aath. I checked what little was known about the races said to flourish further in still, beyond even the Nor T'alush, and they had the volcryn story too."

"The legend of the legends," Royd suggested. The spectre's wide mouth turned up in a smile.

"Exactly, exactly," d'Branin agreed. "At that point, I called in the experts, specialists from the Institute for the Study of Nonhuman Intelligence. We researched for two years. It was all there, in the files and the libraries at the Academy. No one had ever looked before, or bothered to put it together.

"The volcryn have been moving through the manrealm for most of human history, since before the dawn of spaceflight. While we twist the fabric of space itself to cheat relativity, they have been sailing their great ships right through the heart of our alleged civilization, past our most populous worlds, at stately slow sublight speeds, bound for the Fringe and the dark between the galaxies. Marvelous, Royd, marvelous!"

"Marvelous," Royd agreed.

Karoly d'Branin set down his chocolate cup and leaned forward eagerly towards Royd's projection, but his hand passed through empty light when he tried to grasp his companion by the forearm. He seemed disconcerted for a moment, before he began to laugh at himself. "Ah, my volcryn. I grow overenthused, Royd. I am so close now. They have preyed on my mind for a dozen years, and within a month I will have them. Then, then, if only I can open communication, if only my people can reach them, then at last I will know the why of it!"

 

Yeah, I thought that bit about Wendy Donnager sounded familiar, I am glad you were able to pull up your old post. Oh those eclipse pebbles!! So many leads to follow, so little time... 

The comparative mythology in Nightflyers is pretty awesome, simply as a means of showing that that is something on George's mind. He thinks it's as awesome as I do, you can tell from there writing.

[LmL]

22 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

And who exactly is a warg?

In Old Norse vargr means simply 'wolf'.

When this term is used, it usually refers to Fenrir, Skoll or Hati:

And look at this riddle:

What is that lamp

which lights up men,

but flame engulfs it,

and wargs grasp after it always?

 

She lights up every land and shines over all men, and Skoll and Hati are called wargs. Those are wolves, one going before the sun, the other after the moon.

 

Skoll chases sun (Sól), while his brother Hati  the moon (Mani). During Ragnarok wolves will succeed in their hunt and darkness will fall upon the Nine Worlds 

Hati means moon-snatcher.

His mother is a giantess of placevcalled Ironwood.

Hati is god of solar eclipses as well.

 

So warg = a person who snatches rhe moon or sun.

And every warg is a greenseer ...

 

 

Another thing:

In Ring of Nibelungs, when Odin destroyed Siegmunds sword, he used his spear Gungir (a very important item in my world's symbolism) made from World Tree Yggdrasil's wood... A weirwood spear...

So that's a tree weapon vs. a sword stuck in a tree. A weirwood spear vs. the magic sword of three forgings. Very interesting... as was all the other stuff you posted, but I fear I must go to work and leave the thread alone for a few... I am aware of th sun and moon eating wolves, for sure, and yeah, that's another clue about greenseer being the ones to hide the sun and moon. AA the greenseer. 

[ravenous reader]

23 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Btw, @ravenous reader is your nickname a reference to Odin's wolves Geri and Freki? Their names mean ravenous/greedy.

No, not deliberately, but I love that allusion, now that you're pointing it out!

I just liked the way GRRM frequently plays with the word 'ravening' -- thereby uniting raven and wolf in one and conveying the idea of 'hunger' (or ravenousness) being associated figuratively with a hunger for knowledge in addition to food!

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Little green men/pod people, if you want to combine the black oily stone that fell from the sky and Naga being an asteroid hit. Then we get aliens and I would say it isn't the little green men but those terrifying black dragon parasites exploding from the chest cavity. 

'little green men' lol.