Heresy 193 Winterfell

[Black Crow]

Welcome to Heresy 193, the latest edition of the quirky thread where we take an in-depth look at the story and in particular what GRRM has referred to as the real conflict, not the Game of Thrones, but the apparent threat which lies in the North, in the magical otherlands beyond the Wall. It’s called Heresy because we were the first to challenge the orthodoxy that the Wall is the last best hope of mankind; to question whether the three-fingered tree-huggers really are kindly elves and question too whether the Starks might have a dark secret in their past.

 

The strength and the beauty and ultimately the value of Heresy as a critical discussion group is that it reflects diversity and open-ness. This is a thread where ideas can be discussed – and argued – freely, because above all it is about an exchange of ideas and sometimes too a remarkably well informed exchange drawing upon an astonishing broad base of literature ranging through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and so many others all to the way to the Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Mabinogion.

 

If new to the thread, don’t be intimidated by the size and scope of Heresy, or by some of the many ideas we’ve discussed here over the years since it began in 2011. This is very much a come as you are thread with no previous experience required. We’re very welcoming and we’re very good at talking in circles and we don’t mind going over old ground again, especially with a fresh pair of eyes, so just ask. You will neither be monstered, patronized nor directed to follow links, but will be engaged directly. Just be patient and observe the local house rules that the debate be conducted by reference to the text, with respect for the ideas of others, and above all with great good humour

 

We’ve been around for a while now and discussed an awful lot of stuff over the last five years. Some of it has been overtaken by events and some of it seemingly confirmed by the mummers’ version, but notwithstanding the occasional crack-pottery on the whole its been pretty good stuff and we’re pleased enough with what we’ve done to have a bit of a celebration. In the run-up to Heresy 100 we ran a series of specially commissioned essays focused on discrete aspects of heresy. Now, in the run-up to the Heresy bicentennial we are running a series of essays summarizing  what we’ve been discussing on particular aspects of Heresy. Some of it goes over old ground again, but other essays bring some new ideas to the table. The essays are just starters for 10 so while its hoped that we can focus the discussion on them, that’s not to be considered as prescriptive, to paraphrase GRRM himself, Heresy is a matter of gardening, not architecture.

 

And for the third essay we have a rerun of a close look at Winterfell itself.

 

[Black Crow]

Winterfell                   by Black Crow

 

Winterfell is a slightly different topic and I think it would be fair to say that there are a number of “mysteries” impacting on the story in all sorts of ways. So I’d like to begin with a description of the place as seen in a couple of paragraphs by Catelyn and Bran right at the beginning of AGoT:

 

First we have Catelyn, entering the godswood in search of Ned:

 

It was a dark, primal place, three acres of old forest untouched for ten thousand years as the gloomy castle rose around it.

 

So, we’ll come back to the forest later, but right away we thus have a legendary date for the castle’s founding all of 10,000 years ago and this immediately presents us with a big problem, because if Bran the Builder did indeed raise the castle he did so all of 2,000 years before he supposedly raised the Wall if we accept both Catelyn’s date and the traditional belief that the Wall was built after the Long Night 8,000 years ago, but lets leave that aside for the moment and look at the castle itself as seen by our Bran:

 

To a boy, Winterfell was a grey stone labyrinth of walls and towers and courtyards and tunnels spreading out in all directions. In the older parts of the castle, the halls slanted up and down so that you couldn’t even be sure what floor you were on. The place had grown over the centuries like some monstrous stone tree, Maester Luwin told him once, and its branches were gnarled and thick and twisted, its roots sunk deep into the earth…

 

It’s quite a vivid picture and Maester Luwin’s observation is clearly intended as an allusion to a weirwood tree. He may well be right in this and there may be some significance to the comparison, but at the same time it also provides a misleading impression of the real Winterfell. Lets come back to Bran again, just a little further on:

The builders had not even levelled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell. There was a covered bridge that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower across to the second floor of the rookery. Bran knew about that. And he knew that you could get inside the inner wall by the south gate, climb three floors and run all the way around Winterfell through a narrow tunnel in the stone, and then come out of ground level at the north gate, with a hundred feet of wall looming over you.

 

What we also know from Theon’s brief defence of the castle and subsequent escape is that not only is it surrounded by a double stone wall, but there’s a deep moat between the two. In mediaeval terms this might at first seem unusual, but in fact it tells us rather a lot.

What’s immediately striking is the vastness of the area contained within the walls. Not only are there three acres of godswood, which was probably once larger still but there is also sufficient room for a whole host of towers, halls, courtyards, workshops, granaries and other domestic buildings around the original drum tower known as the First Keep and yet all comfortably accommodated with the massive double walls. Once upon a time those walls or their predecessors must have enclosed a huge empty area and far from the castle physically growing larger we’re actually seeing the built part of it slowly expanding to fill that already defined space within the walls – and ditches.

Fortunately there’s a splendid and very relevant parallel here in the 2,000 year old Celtic hill forts such as the famous Maiden Castle in Dorset. Typically these occupy the entire hilltop, extending to 100 acres at Maiden Castle enclosed by very substantial double or even triple banks and ditches. Yet most of the site was left unoccupied with the inhabited areas (including animal pens) being confined to relatively small areas by the gates. While we’re not actually quoted a site area for Winterfell it easily falls within these parameters. It seems obvious therefore that Bran the Builder’s Winterfell was an archetypal Celtic hill fort rather than a classic mediaeval motte and bailey – and that is entirely consistent with the familiar First Men/Celts parallels which we’ve discussed so often before. Indeed we also have a very pertinent example in-house so to speak with the ring-work on the Fist of the First Men.

 

The Fist in fact provides us with a pretty good idea of the original Winterfell, not the High Mediaeval castle which we see now but a ring-work very like the Fist. Clearly therefore the stone walls and other structures which our Bran climbs and clambers over were not erected by Bran the Builder himself. In this respect its also noticeable that the oldest part of the castle …the First Keep… a squat round fortress that was taller than it looked…is known as the First Keep not as Bran’s Keep or Bran’s Tower as one might expect if he was responsible for it. Therefore while there’s no reason to doubt that Bran the Builder created Winterfell by surrounding the site with a ring-work comprising a massive double earthen ditch and rampart, which now underpins the present stone walls, that perimeter may be his only surviving legacy.

 

So why did he surround this particular site with those ditches and banks in the first place?

 

I think that the short answer has to be that rather than pitching upon it as a good site for a castle, he was deliberately enclosing something significant which is even now impacting on the story.

 

Most obviously there are two very striking features; first that unusually large godswood centring on the weirwood and the pools, some hot, some cold. And secondly the crypts,  or perhaps more accurately the caves below Winterfell which have been re-shaped into crypts; caves which are accessed by a deep spiral stair, a “stair to Hell” paraphrasing Old Nan, just like the entrance to the Black Gate up on the Wall.

 

That immediately raised an important question. We’ve discussed how the Black Gate is said to be as old as the Wall and how the Night Fort appears to have been built around it. Are we looking at the same thing here? Were the crypts created or opened up after Winterfell was built or were they the reason why Bran the Builder threw his double rampart and ditch around the sidhe halls within the hill?

 

The crypts themselves present a whole raft of mysteries. As described they are deep underground, and accessed by that spiral staircase to Hell. There appears to be a vaulted roof over a central spine corridor lined by sepulchres. The impression given is that there is a statue fronting on to the corridor with a tomb behind. Wives and children of the deceased may also be in there although that’s not entirely true.

 

As Bran is carried along the corridor he is required to identify the kings buried there and to all appearances the early ones are closest to the stair and we gradually work forward in time as we pass along until we reach the as yet empty ones. There’s no indication that it runs in a circle although I’d be surprised if it didn’t since the Celts didn’t really do straight lines. At the moment though we don’t know and there’s no hint of any significance to the layout of this particular crypt.

 

What’s also odd are the references to lower levels, said to be where the older kings are buried. This seems very strange. Its possible that if the upper level filled up it might be necessary to extend it or to dig deeper, but starting off at the lower level doesn’t make a lot of sense.

 

The only other thing we’re told is that its dangerous because its partially collapsed, but somehow that doesn’t ring true either and sounds more like a reason for forbidding exploring. There is something old down there and it may not necessarily be the Kings of Winter. Perhaps those stairs to Hell, like those of the Nightfort, lead to a magic door; one that can only be opened by a son of Winterfell speaking the words “Winter is Coming”

 

[Black Crow]

I mentioned earlier in passing that it might be possible to see Winterfell as a prison. In re-reading those Bran chapters in Clash of Kings where he is serving as the Stark in Winterfell, talking to the Reeds and running as a wolf in Summer, its striking how much emphasis there is on the stone walls and iron bars serving to trap and imprison the wolves, and then we have the Reeds telling Bran that he is the winged wolf, held by stone chains and that they have come to free him and take him north to the Three-eyed Crow. Are those chains Winterfell itself? It might be easy to say that Bran can’t go to the Crow because he can’t walk but his injuries are not stone chains. Was his fall brought about so that he could eventually be freed and is he the only Stark to be held in Winterfell by those stone chains?

[Melifeather]

Very intriguing essay, BC. You present a compelling argument that the double ringwall was built to either contain or protect something. You suggest that it's the crypts, but the godswood or wolf's wood may be just as important. 

[Matthew.]

Since Brandon the Builder's other supposed constructs - Storm's Keep and the Wall - are both magically warded, it seems very reasonable to assume that Winterfell contains some sort of warding as well in the perimeter where the original ringfort would have been; the idea that the wards are to keep something in rather to keep things out is interesting as well. Perhaps this was Bran the Builder's actual specialty.

That First Keep is also a bit of an oddity. According to the WB, the maesters find its design to be so atypical of everything else in Westeros that they've "definitively" concluded it had to have been built after the Andals had arrived in Westeros. That would certainly align with an assumption that the First Keep, and the other structures within Winterfell, came well after Brandon the Builder.

On the other hand, there is a bit of a crackpot impulse in me to suspect that there may be some significance to the First Keep as well, which is situated near the entrance to the crypts--perhaps has even been built atop them, and whatever other caverns may lay beneath. In addition, if it's truly the oldest structure there, it would be odd for it to only date back to the Andal era, as surely the Kings of the North had built up something more substantial by that time.

[Black Crow]

What I find odd about the Maesters' opinion on the the first keep is that they think its new because its round when it should be square, when in fact the opposite ought to be the case - I'm thinking Pictish brochs - and even in-universe, while I very much doubt that Bob the Builder actually had anything to do with Storm's End, popular legend associates him with it and its drum tower.

[Black Crow]

6 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Very intriguing essay, BC. You present a compelling argument that the double ringwall was built to either contain or protect something. You suggest that it's the crypts, but the godswood or wolf's wood may be just as important. 

Oh, I'd say that we're looking at the site in its totality. Apart from those stairs to hell and whatever they really lead to, there is the black pool. There are or were weirwoods aplenty but this is virtually the only instance Martin tells us of where there is a pool, yet the Celts were very much into worshipping their gods through such sacred pools and wells. Indeed, while it takes a different form in that its down at the bottom of that other stairway to hell, the only other instance which I can recall of a pool being mentioned is at the Nightfort.

[LynnS]

20 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Oh, I'd say that we're looking at the site in its totality. Apart from those stairs to hell and whatever they really lead to, there is the black pool. There are or were weirwoods aplenty but this is virtually the only instance Martin tells us of where there is a pool, yet the Celts were very much into worshipping their gods through such sacred pools and wells. Indeed, while it takes a different form in that its down at the bottom of that other stairway to hell, the only other instance which I can recall of a pool being mentioned is at the Nightfort.

It's very interesting to think about Winterfel 1.0 as just an original watch tower, lichyard, crypts, weirwood; all surrounded by old growth forest of the kind in the godswood.  I like the idea that the crypts are built out of a cave system and the lower level are really an extension of the caves. I imagine that the original keep was made out of lumber from the surrounding Wolfswood and eventually replaced with stone from the cave excavation.  It would be a remote and isolated place without even the Kingsroad to connect it to anything with few people to populate the surrounding area.  So it does seem strange that a double wall and ditch was built around it.  To defend from what besides the local wildlife? It does start to sound more like a prison.  The most significant thing about the place would be the weirwood and later the crypts.      

[Black Crow]

2 minutes ago, LynnS said:

 So it does seem strange that a double wall and ditch was built around it.  To defend from what besides the local wildlife? It does start to sound more like a prison.  

This is the thing; a vast area has been enclosed by a double ringwork and ditch - far too big to be defended - assuming of course that Martin has thought this through that ringwork sounds as if its enclosing something and has more of a magical than a military significance. In this respect its worth noting how often religious sites such as Stonehenge are enclosed by ringwork ditches and banks. 

[Melifeather]

@WeaselPie has a thread that discusses wells, towers, and inverted towers. Inverted towers consist of winding stair architecture which carries symbolic meaning including the death and rebirth common to many hermetic traditions. The winding staircase is also common with the Free Masons. Winding staircases symbolize our own internal path, the "hero's quest" where you leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height. The mention of the hero's quest brings to mind the story of the Last Hero and his quest to seek out the Children. The winding stairs that lead down into the Winterfell crypts, the sidhe-like Children and white walkers, and the story of the Last Hero seem to be connected to the Stark family. Perhaps this ancient history is sitting in plain site within the double ring walls of Winterfell.

Pools of water can also be considered wells and connected to the same symbolism associated with winding stairs. The Stark association with ice magic, the Nights King, and white walkers leading armies of dead wights are part of the icy hell that is necessary before the rebirth of a new cycle.

Heresy has also brought up discussions of aes sidhe, a magical supernatural race in Irish and Scottish mythology comparable with fairies or elves, which are said to live underground in mounds in an invisible world that coexists with humans. The Children are also said to live underground, and I think it's apparent that GRRM has not only drawn inspiration from the sidhe and split it into his Children and white walkers, I think we're meant to draw a connection between the two.

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

@WeaselPie has a thread that discusses wells, towers, and inverted towers. Inverted towers consist of winding stair architecture which carries symbolic meaning including the death and rebirth common to many hermetic traditions. The winding staircase is also common with the Free Masons. Winding staircases symbolize our own internal path, the "hero's quest" where you leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height. The mention of the hero's quest brings to mind the story of the Last Hero and his quest to seek out the Children. The winding stairs that lead down into the Winterfell crypts, the sidhe-like Children and white walkers, and the story of the Last Hero seem to be connected to the Stark family. Perhaps this ancient history is sitting in plain site within the double ring walls of Winterfell.

Pools of water can also be considered wells and connected to the same symbolism associated with winding stairs. The Stark association with ice magic, the Nights King, and white walkers leading armies of dead wights are part of the icy hell that is necessary before the rebirth of a new cycle.

Heresy has also brought up discussions of aes sidhe, a magical supernatural race in Irish and Scottish mythology comparable with fairies or elves, which are said to live underground in mounds in an invisible world that coexists with humans. The Children are also said to live underground, and I think it's apparent that GRRM has not only drawn inspiration from the sidhe and split it into his Children and white walkers, I think we're meant to draw a connection between the two.

Pools and wells are interchangeable in Celtic religious practice. Towers, above ground, almost invariably serve as prisons in fairy tales [always worth bearing in mind when thinking of the tower of joy], but the real crux of the matter is going into the ground, going down into the darkness and the loss of ordinary perception so explicitly celebrated by Bran.

So far as Winterfell is concerned I'd suggest offerings made in the pool - right down to the blood which Lord Eddard washes off Ice - but the real business lies down those winding stairs to Hell. Winterfell is less a mighty fortress than a place of magic.

[Matthew.]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

What I find odd about the Maesters' opinion on the the first keep is that they think its new because its round when it should be square, when in fact the opposite ought to be the case - I'm thinking Pictish brochs - and even in-universe, while I very much doubt that Bob the Builder actually had anything to do with Storm's End, popular legend associates him with it and its drum tower.

I'm not raising Storm's End to suggest that he built the actual structure, but to make a comparison to an underlying ward upon which a structure was later built--another warded ring-work. Even if he didn't personally raise the wards, the fact that two of the locations that legend most famously associated him with are known to be magically warded - with SE's wards confirmed by Melisandre - may allow us to logically infer that the other famous construct (Winterfell) is also warded, even before we look at other evidence and foreshadowing.

 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

I'm not raising Storm's End to suggest that he built the actual structure, but to make a comparison to an underlying ward upon which a structure was later built--another warded ring-work. Even if he didn't personally raise the wards, the fact that two of the locations that legend most famously associated him with are known to be magically warded - with SE's wards confirmed by Melisandre - may allow us to logically infer that the other famous construct (Winterfell) is also warded, even before we look at other evidence and foreshadowing.
 

Of I agree entirely. I was only referencing the drum tower at Storms End as a comparison with the equally round tower at Winterfell, by way of refuting the curious notion of some maesters that the Winterfell one ought to have been square.

As I said earlier I'm more inclined to see Winterfell and its ringworks as a place of magic rather than a mighty fortress and that implies warding as a matter of course - but warded against whom and to keep them in or out?

As an aside on that I'm reminded of that curious business on the Fist where Ghost evidently found it warded against him, yet later was able to pass unimpeded. Is it possible that Jon himself was the reason? Jon was unable to force Ghost inside the ring, but once Jon himself was inside, Ghost was able to enter.

[Brad Stark]

Before the Long Night, the north was sparsely populated with small settlements of First Men.  When the cold came, men gathered around hot Springs to provide warmth and shelter, which became the first Winterfell.  As it got colder and the Others began to attack, the other settlements were abandoned or everyone died, and all the remaining men gathered at Winterfell to make a final stand against the Others.  As they were being defeated, the last Hero left Winterfell, got information from the Children on how to defeat the Others, and returned to defeat them, ending the Long Night.

[Brad Stark]

Now the tombs are interesting.  We are told the first Kings of Winter were buried at the deeper levels.  Then they started burying them at the first level near the exit, moving further away as space got taken.   This doesn't make much sense.  

If the lower level was full or collapsed, and they were in the habit of burying farthest from the entrance, they would have continued that practice.  So either they changed the practice from far to near to near to far, or as I suspect, there are no older Kings buried deeper.  Either their were no Stark Kings yet, or they were buried somewhere else, and people were told that to keep them out of the lower levels.  Or the oldest Kings were somehow deformed or different, and were moved to a deeper level later.  Any way you look at it, something interesting happened right before the nearest King was buried.

[Brad Stark]

The Romans built everything with round columns, and later the Moors arrived and built square ones.  As far as I know, both built round and square buildings.  What I take from the tower is that it wasn't built by the same people who built everything else.  Just another clue that Winterfell was not raised all at once in its present state by Bran the Builder, but has been around a very long time, with various additions made at different times.

[LynnS]

42 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Now the tombs are interesting.  We are told the first Kings of Winter were buried at the deeper levels.  Then they started burying them at the first level near the exit, moving further away as space got taken.   This doesn't make much sense.

And for some reason, I'm thinking they are not all buried in a stone sarcophagus with a statue and direwolf.

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

The light dwindled again. Small as she was, the child-who-was-not-a-child moved quickly when she wanted. As Hodor thumped after her, something crunched beneath his feet. His halt was so sudden that Meera and Jojen almost slammed into his back.

"Bones," said Bran. "It's bones." The floor of the passage was littered with the bones of birds and beasts. But there were other bones as well, big ones that must have come from giants and small ones that could have been from children. On either side of them, in niches carved from the stone, skulls looked down on them. Bran saw a bear skull and a wolf skull, half a dozen human skulls and near as many giants. All the rest were small, queerly formed. Children of the forest. The roots had grown in and around and through them, every one. A few had ravens perched atop them, watching them pass with bright black eyes.

 

[Arry'sFleas]

whoever built the First Keep left their visiting card in its gargoyles.

[Black Crow]

The gargoyles may be no more than later embellishments, a round drum tower or broch is very much in keeping with the Celtic styles that seem to form the model for the original Winterfell - and the Fist

[Black Crow]

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

And for some reason, I'm thinking they are not all buried in a stone sarcophagus with a statue and direwolf.

 

Yes, if there are bones down there I'm thinking that's a fair allusion.