Why don't they burn bodies in the North?

[Jojen Dayne-Reed]

Seriously. After the long night wouldn't it make sense for it to be tradition to burn the dead not burry them?  They might not remember why they do it but you'd think it'd be ingrained in the culture. 

<end rant>

[Jasemina]

its been a while since i last read the books but are they even mentioning what does the common folk do with their dead? i know stark family has crypts but i dont recall what others do with dead was being mentioned o.o i might be wrong

[Damon_Tor]

1 hour ago, Jojen Dayne-Reed said:

Seriously. After the long night wouldn't it make sense for it to be tradition to burn the dead not burry them?  They might not remember why they do it but you'd think it'd be ingrained in the culture. 

<end rant>

We have no reason to believe anything about the Long Night. It was 8000 years ago. Truth doesn't survive 8000 years. Fiction doesn't survive 8000 years either. The oldest story we have is about 4000 years old.

For all we know the First Men were the ones who raised the dead and their crypts and barrows are where they stored their army in case there was another war and they needed their shock troops back again.

[The Fattest Leech]

1 hour ago, Jojen Dayne-Reed said:

Seriously. After the long night wouldn't it make sense for it to be tradition to burn the dead not burry them?  They might not remember why they do it but you'd think it'd be ingrained in the culture. 

<end rant>

How far north are you talking? Just the north of the neck north? Or the real north, above the wall?

There are probably a few different ways to take care of dead bodies depending on the situation, but we know wildlings know fire deals with wights and they burn their dead, which Jon learns in his wight fight in Mormont's chambers, so now the NW knows. The always scarily accurate Dolorous Edd says this, "I hope the Weeper burned the bodies," said the dour man, the one called Dolorous Edd. "Elsewise they might come looking for their heads."

But there is also these:

• He knelt and reached a gloved hand down into the maw. The inside of the hollow was red with dried sap and blackened by fire. Beneath the skull he saw another, smaller, the jaw broken off. It was half-buried in ash and bits of bone.
  When he brought the skull to Mormont, the Old Bear lifted it in both hands and stared into the empty sockets. "The wildlings burn their dead. We've always known that. Now I wished I'd asked them why, when there were still a few around to ask."
  Jon Snow remembered the wight rising, its eyes shining blue in the pale dead face. He knew why, he was certain.
• By late afternoon the snow was falling steadily, but the river of wildlings had dwindled to a stream. Columns of smoke rose from the trees where their camp had been. "Toregg," Tormund explained. "Burning the dead. Always some who go to sleep and don't wake up. You find them in their tents, them as have tents, curled up and froze. Toregg knows what to do."

And Roose says this (below), but he may just be talking about burning evidence. He did burn the letters Fat Walda was sending him while at Harrenhal. We don't know what was in those letters, but it could have been evidence of treason planning, or something:

• ADWD- When the cooks found him outside the kitchens, buried up to his neck in a snowdrift, both dick and man were blue from cold. "Burn the body," Roose Bolton ordered, "and see that you do not speak of this. I'll not have this tale spread."

However, back in ACOK/Tyrion VI, we do see Alliser Thorne make his way to King's Landing to try and give proof of the dead are rising. That doesn't go over very well, which is the main reason why more people in the south have no idea what is going on at the wall and what the real crisis is:

• "Arrest some more, then," Tyrion told him. "Or spread the word that there's bread and turnips on the Wall, and they'll go of their own accord." The city had too many mouths to feed, and the Night's Watch a perpetual need of men. At Tyrion's signal, the herald cried an end, and the hall began to empty.
  Ser Alliser Thorne was not so easily dismissed. He was waiting at the foot of the Iron Throne when Tyrion descended. "Do you think I sailed all the way from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to be mocked by the likes of you?" he fumed, blocking the way. "This is no jape. I saw it with my own eyes. I tell you, the dead walk."
  "You should try to kill them more thoroughly." Tyrion pushed past. Ser Alliser made to grab his sleeve, but Preston Greenfield thrust him back. "No closer, ser."
• And then in that same Tyrion chapter, just a few lines after the above, we get this interesting bit of info, "

  "The cold winds are rising. The Wall must be held."

  "And to hold it you need men, which I've given you . . . as you might have noted, if your ears heard anything but insults. Take them, thank me, and begone before I'm forced to take a crab fork to you again. Give my warm regards to Lord Mormont . . . and to Jon Snow as well." Bronn seized Ser Alliser by the elbow and marched him forcefully from the hall.

  Grand Maester Pycelle had already scuttled off, but Varys and Littlefinger had watched it all, start to finish. "I grow ever more admiring of you, my lord," confessed the eunuch. "You appease the Stark boy with his father's bones and strip your sister of her protectors in one swift stroke. You give that black brother the men he seeks, rid the city of some hungry mouths, yet make it all seem mockery so none may say that the dwarf fears snarks and grumkins. Oh, deftly done."

[TMIFairy]

3 hours ago, Damon_Tor said:

We have no reason to believe anything about the Long Night. It was 8000 years ago. Truth doesn't survive 8000 years. Fiction doesn't survive 8000 years either. The oldest story we have is about 4000 years old.

This.

To quote Galadriel from LotR, The Movie:

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth.

1 - Big Walder being burnt - could this be for transport? The sending of bones "home" for burial seems to be a Westeros custom. Burning is one of the more efficient methods of getting rid of the meat.

2 - the Free Folk burning their dead - maybe lack of Sevener influence?

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Quote

Robert frowned. "Have we ridden onto a graveyard?"

"There are barrows everywhere in the north, Your Grace," Ned told him. "This land is old."

 

Quote

Robert kicked his horse back into motion and started down the ridge toward the barrows. Ned kept pace with him. The king rode on, eyes straight ahead. "Yes," he said at last. A single hard word to end the matter.

"Kingslayer," Ned said. The rumors were true, then. He rode on dangerous ground now, he knew.

So Ned and Robert have a field trip to the barrowlands in AGOT Ned II. First Ned says something that makes very little sense. There are barrows everywhere because the land is old. But wait a minute Ned... isn't the north technically the youngest area of Westeros? The First Men came into Westeros through Dorne and then slowly moved north, fighting the COTF as they went. So Ned's explanation is stupid. If there are human barrows "everywhere" in the north simply due to men being there awhile, there should be even more barrows everywhere in the south.

Considering that the primary difference between the north and south is their religious beliefs, I have to assume that the northern houses were up to something more sinister, like ensuring that all their dead are absorbed into the weirnet... or something. And then we get an amusing and possibly foreshadowing double entendre from Ned, "He rode on dangerous ground". He is obviously speaking figuratively about the matter of Jaime being named WotE, but he is also literally riding a horse over the barrowlands.  

as @The Fattest Leech pointed out, the wildlings do burn their dead. But that is a real mystery, because the Wall didn't even exist until after the Others came. So the wildling tradition of burning their dead probably started before the Wall was complete and before there were even "wildlings". So why did one group of people adapt this seemingly no-brainer tradition and others didn't? I don't know.   

[Manderly's Rat Cook]

What I've been wondering about is this: are the wights just preserved in an extreme manner, instead of being warged?

In the real world bodies can be preserved entirely in extreme cold, they won't decompose, perhaps in the asoiaf world their bodily functions are also preserved when the cold is extreme enough. 

If people in Westeros bury their dead rather than burn them (which seems to be most common, since burning the dead is presented as not entirely common throughout the books) this would not cause problems under normal circumstances, because the bodies would decompose. I'm guessing the brainfunctions would 'decompose' first, and very quickly (but not immediately), starting with all the functions associated with warmth.

If there would suddenly be an extreme cold, the decomposition process would stop almost immediately, and the amount of dead bodies would rise drastically, especially during a war. If this extreme cold would be accompanied by a cold mist, that transfers a magical substance, that would trigger the dead bodies to start using their functions again, you'd have wights.

Now these wights would in this case be independent creatures, and not some sort of slaves, but all positive and warm features will be gone (decomposed so to say), and only their grudges and anger etc would be left. Especially towards the ones who were connected to their deaths. 

I have some thoughts on firewights like beric and cat as well, but I haven't entirely figured out how this would work, so I'll keep it real short. Let's just say that this would be more of a preservation process similar to drying, and possibly some of the positive characteristics can be reactivated as well, though not all. 

Getting back to ice wights: skinchangers who are wighted can preserve more of their original personality by escaping into their animals. I believe this to be the case with Coldhands, who appears to either be a skinchanger himself, or a wight that has been warged by bloodraven. 

If my Coldhands theory is true, then I expect Jon to slip into ghost, and to be taken north of the wall, to be cremated amongst the old gods. There he will either rise before being burned, or his cremation will echo the birth of Dany's dragons, with Jon's body not burning, giving him an ice and fire rebirth. If the latter is the case I expect this to be a huge event where either Melissandre is being burned alive, as a punishment for burning mance or shireen (a second mirri maz duur), or she walks in willingly due to a vision, making her believe she will be reborn herself as a dragon or something. Alternatively ghost (or Jon inside ghost) sacrifices himself, but this I do not want. In any case I expect the cold mists to rise during Jon's cremation...

[The Sleeper]

I think it is so they can be taken into the weirwoods. At least as far as the noble houses are concerned. This should be why the custom started, though the reason was forgotten along the way. But they seem to be quite adamant in salvaging the bodies of their dead.

[Rusty Winchester]

3 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

 

So Ned and Robert have a field trip to the barrowlands in AGOT Ned II. First Ned says something that makes very little sense. There are barrows everywhere because the land is old. But wait a minute Ned... isn't the north technically the youngest area of Westeros? The First Men came into Westeros through Dorne and then slowly moved north, fighting the COTF as they went. So Ned's explanation is stupid. If there are human barrows "everywhere" in the north simply due to men being there awhile, there should be even more barrows everywhere in the south.

Could be a couple of things here. The First Men invaded and took the land from the COTF before being displaced themselves by the Andals.  Perhaps the barrows were an ancient tradition of the First Men, and one that was stamped out in the south by the Andals and their different system of beliefs?  I actually thought though that there was some indications (world book maybe?) that suggested the barrows might have more to do with the COTF or the giants then men at all.

[Rusty Winchester]

My thought is that even if the Others can raise the long buried dead, unless someone wants to manually dig them out of the ground, they are unlikely to pose much of a threat.  Burning might be the more definitive solution, but it could be that burying works well enough.

[UnFit Finlay]

3 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

as @The Fattest Leech pointed out, the wildlings do burn their dead. But that is a real mystery, because the Wall didn't even exist until after the Others came. So the wildling tradition of burning their dead probably started before the Wall was complete and before there were even "wildlings". So why did one group of people adapt this seemingly no-brainer tradition and others didn't? I don't know.   

Would the Wall not be the decisive factor there?

The Others were defeated and the Wall was built to keep them out and split what was one people into two. Over the years, those who had it for protection gradually relaxed their burial rights and eventually forgot them altogether as they became more and more involved with the Southern Kingdoms.

The people on the Northern side of the Wall, on the other hand, kept up the tradition because (a) the Wall doesn't protect them and (b) they've essentially been cut off from the influences of other cultures. Raiders who've scaled the Wall might interact with other Northerners but, for the bulk of the Wildings, the only other people they'd really see are the Night's Watch, who they've been taught to hate and fear. They haven't had a reason to stop burning their dead really.

[TMIFairy]

22 minutes ago, UnFit Finlay said:

Would the Wall not be the decisive factor there?

 

Yup.

[Springwatch]

8 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

<snip>

Considering that the primary difference between the north and south is their religious beliefs, I have to assume that the northern houses were up to something more sinister, like ensuring that all their dead are absorbed into the weirnet... or something. And then we get an amusing and possibly foreshadowing double entendre from Ned, "He rode on dangerous ground". He is obviously speaking figuratively about the matter of Jaime being named WotE, but he is also literally riding a horse over the barrowlands.

<snip>

Nice. The dead Lords of Winterfell were locked in their tombs with their own swords, to stop their spirits roaming. I wonder if the crypts, and the barrows, actually prevent the spirit from fading - keeping the ghosts fresh and ready to break out.

8 hours ago, Manderly's Rat Cook said:

What I've been wondering about is this: are the wights just preserved in an extreme manner, instead of being warged?

<snip>

If there would suddenly be an extreme cold, the decomposition process would stop almost immediately, and the amount of dead bodies would rise drastically, especially during a war. If this extreme cold would be accompanied by a cold mist, that transfers a magical substance, that would trigger the dead bodies to start using their functions again, you'd have wights.

Now these wights would in this case be independent creatures, and not some sort of slaves, but all positive and warm features will be gone (decomposed so to say), and only their grudges and anger etc would be left. Especially towards the ones who were connected to their deaths.

<snip>

Extreme preservation, yes; independence, not so much - probably something like Orrell after Varamyr took his eagle; or Hodor being warged by Bran.

The spirit must be alive in there, e.g. to preserve the memory of Mormont's quarters; but there can't be too much independence or they'd all be going after private vendettas instead of forming armies of the slain. The default position does seem to be to murder the nearest living person though.

Potential example: Jaime's touching account of 'going away inside' reminds me of Hodor hiding from Bran. We also get a picture of Jaime bleached out into black and white (moonlight, Whispering Wood). Maybe then, Jaime will give us a first-hand demonstration of what it's like to be a wight.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

6 hours ago, UnFit Finlay said:

Would the Wall not be the decisive factor there?

The Others were defeated and the Wall was built to keep them out and split what was one people into two. Over the years, those who had it for protection gradually relaxed their burial rights and eventually forgot them altogether as they became more and more involved with the Southern Kingdoms.

The people on the Northern side of the Wall, on the other hand, kept up the tradition because (a) the Wall doesn't protect them and (b) they've essentially been cut off from the influences of other cultures. Raiders who've scaled the Wall might interact with other Northerners but, for the bulk of the Wildings, the only other people they'd really see are the Night's Watch, who they've been taught to hate and fear. They haven't had a reason to stop burning their dead really.

That just doesn't make much sense though. If, for instance, House Stark switched their burial tradition from their famous crypts to cremation, they wouldn't just "forget" about cremation over time. That would be the new tradition. And burying dead in barrows or crypts is not a southern tradition, as alluded to by Ned and Robert, so southern influence doesn't explain it.

10 hours ago, Manderly's Rat Cook said:

What I've been wondering about is this: are the wights just preserved in an extreme manner, instead of being warged?

<snip>

I doubt it. The wights (the blue-eyed ones) are probably manipulated via telekinesis, or "teke" as GRRM calls it. We have explicit examples of headless/brainless wights like the bear that killed Thoren Smallwood, and there are examples of even individual limbs that continue moving around, like UnOthor's arm when he fights Jon. And these wights are notoriously clumsy and slow. Contrast that to Beric and Coldhands, who appear fully conscious, can talk, and are still fully physically coordinated so they can fight with a sword. Beric and Coldhands are definitely dead (in medical terms), but it seems that some form of energy other than oxygen is animating them, and their own consciousness is still in control.

8 hours ago, Rusty Winchester said:

Could be a couple of things here. The First Men invaded and took the land from the COTF before being displaced themselves by the Andals.  Perhaps the barrows were an ancient tradition of the First Men, and one that was stamped out in the south by the Andals and their different system of beliefs?  I actually thought though that there was some indications (world book maybe?) that suggested the barrows might have more to do with the COTF or the giants then men at all.

There are a couple hints that this may have something to do with it, mainly this quote:

Quote

As he climbed a wide flight of wooden steps to the hall, Reek's legs began to shake. He had to stop to steady them, staring up at the grassy slopes of the Great Barrow. Some claimed it was the grave of the First King, who had led the First Men to Westeros. Others argued that it must be some King of the Giants who was buried there, to account for its size. A few had even been known to say it was no barrow, just a hill, but if so it was a lonely hill, for most of the barrowlands were flat and windswept.

So in classic GRRM fashion, he has provided us with several seemingly contradictory explanations, while there is likely a piece of the whole truth contained in each one. First off, the giants probably did not have kings. But we (basically) know that greenseers are sometimes referred to as "giants". And of course, the COTF like to inhabit hollow hills, and may have even created them somehow, like High Heart. And it is certainly possible that greenseers were responsible for leading the First Men into Westeros. So the Great Barrow, in truth, is probably some sort of old greenseer lair, similar to BR's cave, and the first Dustin king is indeed probably buried there. And if the barrowlands sprouted up around the Great Barrow, the burial tradition probably began as some sort of weirnet-related thing.

8 hours ago, Rusty Winchester said:

My thought is that even if the Others can raise the long buried dead, unless someone wants to manually dig them out of the ground, they are unlikely to pose much of a threat.  Burning might be the more definitive solution, but it could be that burying works well enough.

It depends. The bodies may not be buried very deep. They may actually be in shallow graves in the underground tunnel network, similar to the Stark crypts. The Starks are far beneath the surface, but their isn't actually too much physical material between them and the open crypts. Additionally, if whatever force controlling the army of the dead is indeed doing so with teke, they make be powerful enough to physically exhume a million graves all at the same time and free the bodies.

2 hours ago, Springwatch said:

Nice. The dead Lords of Winterfell were locked in their tombs with their own swords, to stop their spirits roaming. I wonder if the crypts, and the barrows, actually prevent the spirit from fading - keeping the ghosts fresh and ready to break out.

Extreme preservation, yes; independence, not so much - probably something like Orrell after Varamyr took his eagle; or Hodor being warged by Bran.

The spirit must be alive in there, e.g. to preserve the memory of Mormont's quarters; but there can't be too much independence or they'd all be going after private vendettas instead of forming armies of the slain. The default position does seem to be to murder the nearest living person though.

Potential example: Jaime's touching account of 'going away inside' reminds me of Hodor hiding from Bran. We also get a picture of Jaime bleached out into black and white (moonlight, Whispering Wood). Maybe then, Jaime will give us a first-hand demonstration of what it's like to be a wight.

LOL "fresh" ghosts, I like it  

I do think that's what the crypts and barrows are probably for, but more specifically I think the weirnet is keeping the ghosts fresh, and the burial practices simply facilitate the necessary proximity to the weirnet. I actually think the "swords keeping the spirits locked in their graves" thing is probably a lie. I think the roots of the WF heart tree simply grow into every grave, and every Stark ghost is "added" to the heart tree.

I highly doubt that the spirits of blue-eyed wights are preserved. After all, they can explicitly fight while headless. How can you have memories without a brain? And it is the in-world characters who came to this conclusion (remembering Mormont's quarters), and the in-world characters tend to be wrong about magical matters. Personally, I think the attack on LC Mormont was a false flag operation meant to provoke the great ranging. But that's a whole other conversation.  

[The Fattest Leech]

 

Quote

as @The Fattest Leech pointed out, the wildlings do burn their dead. But that is a real mystery, because the Wall didn't even exist until after the Others came. So the wildling tradition of burning their dead probably started before the Wall was complete and before there were even "wildlings". So why did one group of people adapt this seemingly no-brainer tradition and others didn't? I don't know.   

 @40 Thousand Skeletons, sorry but my quoter hates me here  

Hmm. I may have missed one. It seems at one point in time the free folk did bury their dead. 

This statement by Ygritte says "graves", but since they are looking for an ancient horn, maybe these are really old (ancient) graves they are opening? However, this isn't clear and we know ancient history isn't clear or accurate anyway:

"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!"

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

45 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

 @40 Thousand Skeletons, sorry but my quoter hates me here  

Hmm. I may have missed one. It seems at one point in time the free folk did bury their dead. 

This statement by Ygritte says "graves", but since they are looking for an ancient horn, maybe these are really old (ancient) graves they are opening? However, this isn't clear and we know ancient history isn't clear or accurate anyway:

"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!"

That would be my guess, since they were looking for the Horn of Joramun which is super old.

[Springwatch]

The wights that attacked Bran were 'buried' under snow, but they broke out (attracted to human warmth, according to Coldhands). Maybe burying doesn't stop the transformation into wights, it just traps them, until eventually the whole body disintegrates. Buried alive (sort of).

Fear of the unburied/unburnt dead seems pretty universal, this is Irri:

Quote

Yet they found bones too, the skulls of the unburied dead, bleached and broken. "Ghosts," Irri muttered. "Terrible ghosts. We must not stay here, Khaleesi, this is their place."

ACOK - DAENERYS I

[Yet Another ASOIAF Fan]

12 hours ago, Springwatch said:

The wights that attacked Bran were 'buried' under snow, but they broke out (attracted to human warmth, according to Coldhands). Maybe burying doesn't stop the transformation into wights, it just traps them, until eventually the whole body disintegrates. Buried alive (sort of).

Fear of the unburied/unburnt dead seems pretty universal, this is Irri:

ACOK - DAENERYS I

The universal fear of exposed corpses probably has more to do with fear of diseases caused by said corpses than wights.  Burial and/or burning corpses is a good way to prevent outbreaks.

[Aline de Gavrillac]

Why don't they burn bodies in the North?

And waste good firewood!  No way!

The north is very poor and resources scarce.  Firewood would best be used for cooking and heating. 

The Dustins, I believe, put their dead to rest beneath the hills.  The Boltons feed theirs to the hounds (NOT!). 

The Starks lose their heads so that's less human waste to deal with. 

[Yukle]

As @The Fattest Leech says, customs in the Free Folk show that they do burn their dead.

There's more to it, though.

The Barrows of the First Men and the Crypts of Winterfell indicate that, traditionally, the First Men did once bury their dead. According to The World of Ice and Fire, little is known of First Men customs they only wrote in runes whose meaning is now lost and they tended to write little down at all even then.

Given their religion is closely tied to the Weirwoods, it wouldn't really make sense that they'd burn their dead, given the danger fire poses to their forests. Burying their dead, allowing them to become part of the earth, makes more sense. This would explain the barrows of the First Men - and the fact that a large settlement in the North is called Barrowton. Of course, the Starks seem to use tombs that are of no use to fertilising trees.

The threat of the Others is real for the Free Folk. The Wall has kept the Others North for so long that, if they ever burned their dead, they've long since reverted to their usual custom of burial. For the Free Folk, burning has become their new custom.

Even then, not all of the Free Folk burn their dead, any more than all in the North have a culture influenced by the Andals. The mountain people of the North are much more alike to the mountain people of the Vale than the Starks, for instance.

The Thenns and the Skagosi eat their dead, or at least are rumoured to. The Boltons flay their enemies, which could be a gross custom that originated with ensuring that they couldn't return as wights (at least, not as easily).