What should be known of Long Night?

[Jaak]

Well, what should be known?

World of Ice and Fire does not really make sense here.

Yes, Westeros was illiterate for 2000 years after Long Night.

But when Andal septons and Citadel maesters first came to write down histories which were so far oral, what should they have heard?

Every House would ave had their own history. Founding, wars, alliances... But if they were concerned with themselves, and forgot and conflated much of their own history, they could have forgotten the names of the neighbours they fought and allied with. Wars happened to each House at different times.

There were three events that affected all Westeros. Andal conquest (whether succumbing or repelling), initial settlement of First Men, and Long Night.

Long Night should have happened to all at the same time.

The details of how each House fared at Long Night, or that the House has no specific tradition of Long Night, because the House was founded from obscurity sometime in two millennia between Long Night and Andal conquest, should have been an obvious thing to systematically record in a geographic review of history!

[Frey Kings]

Relax, we have a couple of greenseerers left 

[kissdbyfire]

6 hours ago, Jaak said:

Well, what should be known?

World of Ice and Fire does not really make sense here.

Yes, Westeros was illiterate for 2000 years after Long Night.

But when Andal septons and Citadel maesters first came to write down histories which were so far oral, what should they have heard?

Every House would ave had their own history. Founding, wars, alliances... But if they were concerned with themselves, and forgot and conflated much of their own history, they could have forgotten the names of the neighbours they fought and allied with. Wars happened to each House at different times.

There were three events that affected all Westeros. Andal conquest (whether succumbing or repelling), initial settlement of First Men, and Long Night.

Long Night should have happened to all at the same time.

The details of how each House fared at Long Night, or that the House has no specific tradition of Long Night, because the House was founded from obscurity sometime in two millennia between Long Night and Andal conquest, should have been an obvious thing to systematically record in a geographic review of history!

True, we have no real, juicy details. Just enough to make my mouth water... like slavers' entrails hanging from weirwoods!

We get bits and bobs here and there, but if I had to guess I'd say that's more because Martin hasn't really fleshed out the details on that in full yet than anything else. I think he has the broad strokes of what he wants but not the specifics. 

[Jaak]

For example, take Stark past.

We have details like Brandon the Builder in his youth giving advice to Durran Godsgrief on how to build Storm´s End.

And of Brandon of Bloody Blade being a son of Garth Greenhand and ancestor of Brandon the Builder... in some accounts his father.

Brandon the Builder being a Southron makes sense. If Kings died in Long Night, as the tales tell, then it makes sense that lands fell vacant. Brandon the Builder may have been from Reach and migrated to North after Long Night to take advantage of newly vacant lands and build Winterfell there.

 

Son of Brandon of Bloody Blade?

That´ s a natural way for oral memory.

The illiterate Starks of Winterfell as of the coming of Andals had to look back on 6000 years of Starks. Something like 300 names to remember, and stories. Not easy, without writing.

The last 2000 years, after Long Night, would have been the history of Winter Kings of Winterfell, and how they gradually subdued the neighbouring kings of North. The familiarity with the lands mentioned as conquered, and present relevance of the stories to the relations with bannermen who held these lands, would have aided the memory of these last 2000 years.

But the 4000 years in Reach, from Brandon of Bloody Blade, to Brandon the Builder? No Kings (Gardener was). Maybe 200 Stark lords to remember, maybe not even that (maybe Reach Starks were masters/landed knight equivalents pre-knighthood, not lords). History of petty wars in Gardener service, feuds and marriage alliances with petty and now distant from Winterfell Reach nobles (and maybe some of them long extinct). Not awfully memorable in illiterate Winterfell.

Making Brandon the Builder a son of Brandon of Bloody Blade makes Brandon the Builder a grandson of Garth Greenhand. And the timespan from Garth Greenhand to Long Night 40 years, not 4000.

Possible for illiterate Starks of Winterfell 2000 years later - the 4000 years in Reach were forgettable.

[JNR]

10 hours ago, Jaak said:

Brandon the Builder being a Southron makes sense. If Kings died in Long Night, as the tales tell, then it makes sense that lands fell vacant. Brandon the Builder may have been from Reach and migrated to North after Long Night to take advantage of newly vacant lands and build Winterfell there.

The World book concepts often conflict with one or more of the canonical accounts, though. 

For instance, when did Brandon the Builder live? 

AGOT says in Catelyn's first chapter:

Quote

The gods of Winterfell kept a different sort of wood. It was a dark, primal place, three acres of old forest untouched for ten thousand years as the gloomy castle rose around it

Quote

They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone

This version of Winterfell's history suggests Brandon the Builder built Winterfell 10K years back, which if true would mean he lived long before the Long Night. 

But if so, then presumably this can't be the same Brandon the Builder who according to myths built the Wall, because the Wall would be much newer to the world than that (eight thousand years old, if AGOT is correct). 

Of course, all these dates may well be wrong, but no matter what it seems very unlikely that the Wall and Winterfell are  the same age.

Did Brandon the Builder have anything to do with Storm's End?  The canon is not at all clear:

Quote

Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder.

Even once a true alphabet arrives with the Andals, records wouldn't last indefinitely.  The vast majority from thousands of years back would be long since crumbled to dust and forgotten.   In our world, the huge majority of written works from (for instance) the Greek and Roman cultures more than 2K years old are gone, and this is why.

Verbal stories remain, but obviously imperfectly.  Over time people introduce changes and different versions of the tales are created and spread.  The above example of the origin of Storm's End, which has multiple versions, demonstrates GRRM's awareness of this truth.

So for me, it's actually remarkable that anything from 5K years ago or more would be remembered, let alone in as much detail as we get.   Jojen puts it simply and well:

Quote

so much is forgotten, and so much we never knew

 

 

[Jaak]

19 hours ago, JNR said:

The World book concepts often conflict with one or more of the canonical accounts, though. 

For instance, when did Brandon the Builder live? 

AGOT says in Catelyn's first chapter:

This version of Winterfell's history suggests Brandon the Builder built Winterfell 10K years back, which if true would mean he lived long before the Long Night. 

But if so, then presumably this can't be the same Brandon the Builder who according to myths built the Wall, because the Wall would be much newer to the world than that (eight thousand years old, if AGOT is correct). 

Of course, all these dates may well be wrong, but no matter what it seems very unlikely that the Wall and Winterfell are  the same age.

Did Brandon the Builder have anything to do with Storm's End?  The canon is not at all clear:

Not particularly unlikely.

The first literate Starks, looking back to millennia and tens of generations of illiterate Starks at Winterfell, might have been at least hazily aware that a number of Starks achieved nothing permanent and were not particularly memorable. Nor might they have known the true length of named Starks' lives in terms of years.

Masorah, Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch agree on the names of 8 ancestors between Adam and Noah. They disagree on their lifespans. As a result, Septuagint gives 2158 years from Creation to birth of Shem, Masorah only 1558. Both versions have been in circulation for the last 2000 years, there is no new evidence to support either of them over the other... and neither of them is plausible in the first place.

[Tucu]

I think a more important question is what had to be forgotten about the Long Night. What attrocities were committed by all the surviving factions in order to live through a winter that lasted a generation? How was peaced achieved between the factions after this?

Hoster Blackwood gives us a justification for the greenseers and other groups to manipulate history and legend:

Quote

"So you are fighting over a crown that one of you took from the other back when the Casterlys still held Casterly Rock, is that the root of it? The crown of a kingdom that has not existed for thousands of years?" He chuckled. "So many years, so many wars, so many kings … you'd think someone would have made a peace."

"Someone did, my lord. Many someones. We've had a hundred peaces with the Brackens, many sealed with marriages. There's Blackwood blood in every Bracken, and Bracken blood in every Blackwood. The Old King's Peace lasted half a century. But then some fresh quarrel broke out, and the old wounds opened and began to bleed again. That's how it always happens, my father says. So long as men remember the wrongs done to their forebears, no peace will ever last. So we go on century after century, with us hating the Brackens and them hating us. My father says there will never be an end to it."

 

[Jaak]

5 hours ago, Tucu said:

I think a more important question is what had to be forgotten about the Long Night. What attrocities were committed by all the surviving factions in order to live through a winter that lasted a generation? How was peaced achieved between the factions after this?

One thing: not all victims of these atrocities survived. A lot of perpetrators found it easy to forget about their evil deeds, because their victims did not live to tell their tales, and bystanders did not care.

Another: think of the factions which survived Long Night, but did not survive Andal conquest. Like Mudds who died in Andal conquest, or Casterlies who were replaced before Lannisters continued in Lydden line. The Houses that went extinct while illiterate never got to write their side of story. Oddly, the Lannister history in World Book does give a founding story for Casterlies. Some oral history was carried over.

But the histories that became Someone Else´s History before or during Andal conquest were prime candidates to be forgotten rather than written down.

[Ser Leftwich]

About as much as people in the real world know about the events of myths. AKA nothing.

[Jaak]

1 hour ago, Ser Leftwich said:

About as much as people in the real world know about the events of myths. AKA nothing.

Sure.

But why is the full story of Brandon the Builder not "known" the way the full story of Odysseus or David is "known" - that is, a single universally recognized account that no one is going to contradict? Did the Westeros of Andal Conquest write down any history that gained as general acceptance as Illiad and Odyssey, or Books of Moses, Samuel and Kings?

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, Jaak said:

Sure.

But why is the full story of Brandon the Builder not "known" the way the full story of Odysseus or David is "known" - that is, a single universally recognized account that no one is going to contradict? Did the Westeros of Andal Conquest write down any history that gained as general acceptance as Illiad and Odyssey, or Books of Moses, Samuel and Kings?

Like I said, this is likely b/c Martin only has the broad strokes and hasn't fleshed out the details yet. 

[Ser Leftwich]

1 hour ago, Jaak said:

Sure.

But why is the full story of Brandon the Builder not "known" the way the full story of Odysseus or David is "known" - that is, a single universally recognized account that no one is going to contradict? Did the Westeros of Andal Conquest write down any history that gained as general acceptance as Illiad and Odyssey, or Books of Moses, Samuel and Kings?

This stuff is all fuzzy. The Iliad and Odyssey were recited epic poems, so were pretty much one version. But then there are issues of translation between languages once it was written down.

As for the biblical stories, those still aren't agreed upon. At some point some groups of old dudes says "This is the version" and in Westeros, that groups says, "that is made up grumkin tales, not real history." So all we have is told versions or a range of versions collected by a Maester who wandered the North. Unless there is a reason to codify a version, the Maesters wouldn't, and clearly haven't.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

But the original Starks or the First Men wouldn't have been illiterate. They had runes. They had their own alphabet. 

Bronze Yohn Royce has his special runic armor. Tormund gives up his gold arm bands that were graven with runes. The horn that Mel burns had runes, the crown of the Kings of Winter had runes. These are at least things that might be ancient.

The problem is the translation. I mean they would basically need a Rosetta stone to be able to translate whatever records still exist. 

I wouldn't be surprised if there are accounts of the Long Night set in runes that are in need of translating. There are people who have crossed the Wall who speak the Old Tongue still. So they might be of help there if records of the Long Night survived.

[kissdbyfire]

52 minutes ago, Widow's Watch said:

But the original Starks or the First Men wouldn't have been illiterate. They had runes. They had their own alphabet. 

Bronze Yohn Royce has his special runic armor. Tormund gives up his gold arm bands that were graven with runes. The horn that Mel burns had runes, the crown of the Kings of Winter had runes. These are at least things that might be ancient.

The problem is the translation. I mean they would basically need a Rosetta stone to be able to translate whatever records still exist. 

I wouldn't be surprised if there are accounts of the Long Night set in runes that are in need of translating. There are people who have crossed the Wall who speak the Old Tongue still. So they might be of help there if records of the Long Night survived.

Yes. And we will learn it all as soon as Martin comes up w/ it in detail.

 

[Jaak]

On 6/22/2018 at 2:21 AM, Widow's Watch said:

But the original Starks or the First Men wouldn't have been illiterate. They had runes. They had their own alphabet. 

Bronze Yohn Royce has his special runic armor. Tormund gives up his gold arm bands that were graven with runes. The horn that Mel burns had runes, the crown of the Kings of Winter had runes. These are at least things that might be ancient.

The problem is the translation. I mean they would basically need a Rosetta stone to be able to translate whatever records still exist.

When First Men adopted Andal writing, what became of tradition of runes?

[Alexis-something-Rose]

5 hours ago, Jaak said:

When First Men adopted Andal writing, what became of tradition of runes?

I guess it was easier for everyone to just communicate and write in the same language and the Old Tongue and the writing system were gradually lost.

I took issue with calling the First Men illiterate when they had their own writing system. 

Would House Royce whose seat is called Runestone have been able to preserve the writing and the language? House Royce is a First Men family. The First Men carved their runes on rocks. If there are preserved accounts of anything and translations, I think that's the place look.

Bronze Yohn's son, Waymar, wasn't just the very first kill of the entire series, but he was also killed by a Other. I believe that is going to be very significant in the long run. 

[Jaak]

On 6/25/2018 at 3:34 PM, Widow's Watch said:

I guess it was easier for everyone to just communicate and write in the same language and the Old Tongue and the writing system were gradually lost.

I took issue with calling the First Men illiterate when they had their own writing system. 

Would House Royce whose seat is called Runestone have been able to preserve the writing and the language? House Royce is a First Men family. The First Men carved their runes on rocks. If there are preserved accounts of anything and translations, I think that's the place look.

Um. Royces bent their knee to Arryn 6000 years ago.

Starks did not.

Why should Starks have changed their language?

On the other hand, if Brandon the Builder came from Reach with his Reach followers after Long Night, speaking a different tongue than the northerners who had survived the Long Night... then it would have made sense for his subjects and bannermen to adopt his language and forsake the Old Tongue.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

3 hours ago, Jaak said:

Why should Starks have changed their language?

For me this is something that I find inconsistent in the story. The north was never invaded by the Andals. Since the north kept its religion and its traditions, then why not the language too. 

In any case, I'm assuming that the lower levels of the crypts could have the names of the ancient Starks carved in the Old Tongue. Tristifer Mudd's sepulcher was graven with runes before they worn away.

For me, conquest doesn't equate losing one's language, though. And yes, I think the Royces are a House that has not lost that. Bending the knee and taking up the Seven doesn't mean that they have abandoned everything. Same with other notable First Men Houses.

I'm going to leave off here, because I think the conversation will start circling the drain.

[Vhagar's Ghost]

I mean think about it, the Long Night happened, some say 8,000 or 6,000 years, or perhaps even earlier. In our world that is like, the end of the last ice age, and then you take religious figures or mythical figures from our world and whats written about them and the events supposedly happen 2,000 years ago. And even after all that time there are some inconsistencies with what is written about them. Now 8,000 or 6,000 years is even longer. The original story of what actually happened is probably nowhere near the truth, it's just been exaggerated over time. Also the first written records of the Long Night occured 2,000 years after the fact so it makes sense that people don't know what happened.

[Jaak]

6 hours ago, Widow's Watch said:

For me this is something that I find inconsistent in the story. The north was never invaded by the Andals. Since the north kept its religion and its traditions, then why not the language too.

I find the same inconstistency.

For me, a solution is that replacement of Old Tongue by Common Speech happened not with Andal conquest, but after Long Night. Starks were not replaced nor subjugated by Andal conquest, but they were outsider newcomers in North after Long Night.