What happened at Hardhome 600 years ago ?

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

Of all the settlements built and inhabitated by the Free Folks/Wildings, Hardhome is certainly the greatest and most well-known. Six centuries before the start of the series the settlement was in a rising development and was the closest thing to a true town ever built north of the Wall.

The location of Hardhome after all was perfect for the Free Folks to build a true town and port and to start advancing their society with it being located on a sheltered bay and waters deep enough for large ships, with plenty of wood and stone for construction materials, many cave mouths to serve as possible shelters as well as lots of fish, seals and sea cows for food.

However the development of this proto-city and of the Free Folks was ended abruptly around 600 years before AGOT, for reasons that remain mysterious to this day. Hardhome and its inhabitants are said to have burned by terrible fire so high and hot that the Night's Watch thought that it was the sun rising in from the north and that afteward ashes rained down from there for almost half a year. 

The sailors and watchmen who went here to investigate found burned corpses and trees, water choked with swollen corpses and seemingly supernatural screams coming from the caves. After that Hardhome was never ressetled by the wildlings again, with wildness restablishing its rule here, and got a terrible reputation as a haunted place across all over Westeros and even in Essos. 

But what could have happened here to cause the destruction of Hardhome and of its people ? What could have caused this destruction, light and heat ? 

Could it have been a volcanic phenomenon or could it be magic related ? Could it have been something related to the magic of the Old Gods and of the Children of the Forest ? 

Or could it have been the result of an attack by the Valyrians and of their dragons ? Or could the Valyrians have tried a magic ritual, a sort of prelude to the Doom of Valyria here with dangerous and volatile magics here ? 

If yes what could have caused them to do something so terrible and destructive on this proto-town that wasn't a threat to their empire ?

[Universal Sword Donor]

Volcano

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

I'll take it as true that the fire can be seen from the wall and assume it's not an exaggeration.  The two best guesses are a volcanic eruption or a fallen meteor.

[John Suburbs]

Test run for the Doom

[Loose Bolt]

Dragonlords tried to raid Hardhome and local skinchangers tried to take over their dragons. But wargs cannot control dragons. Instead they only broke connections between dragonlords and their dragons and made those angry and hostile toward anyone. So both invaders and locals were wiped out by those mad dragons.

 

[TargBaitedStrawman]

Ice Dragons vs. Dragons?

[Curled Finger]

Baby Doom.  

[Jaenara Belarys]

Some dickhead god up above was testing out a new toy.

Spoiler

Or it was a nuclear test from North Korea. ;). It's a joke, mods. 

 

[Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe]

Bloated corpses in water, partially burnt bodies, and strange sounds from caves. Sounds like an attack by people, slavers, or cave dwellers. Survivors of the attack or shrieks in caves.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

In Irish folklore there is a notion that the little fairies (sidhe ~ "shee") who live in hollow hills (siodh) cause strong blasts of wind, called sidhe gaoithe (pronounced "shee-goth") and in fact sidhe means "a blast, a puff, a leap or bound" and "fairy, magic" and the aos sidhe  ("fairy folk") or sluagh sidhe ("the fairy host"), was believed to actually ride on the blast of wind and carry off mortals.  

So the sidhe fairies (the children of the forest) are synonymous with blasts, and the blasts carry people off.

Hardhome is on Storrold's point.  In Icelandic stor alda means "great wave, billow" and in Old Norse styrjold means "stir age, war, tumult" and is right below "war wind" and "Styrkr"

And in gaelic ard means "hill" and arduighim sounds like "hardhome" and it means "to raise, lift, hoist, ascend"  (and ard home = "hill home")

in gaelic stor means "store, ammunition" and "steep, high cliff" and "a cry used to incite a bull" (bole = bull, white tree = white bole = white bull) 

Hardhome was a sidhe gaoithe, in which a fairy hill was blasted into space, carrying off a load of CotF. The CotF left the planet inside their hard home, the stone tree.  The incident was like the rising of the Sun in the North.  And the shrieks from the tunnels were those who were left behind who hadn't finished uploading to the weirwood network.

How would primitive people describe a rocket launch seen at night?  Would they describe it as being like the sun rising?  Or a tree being struck by lightning?  Watch a video of a rocket launch at night, it looks just like the sun rising. 

 

Lord of the Rings

At the climax of LoTR, two hobbits (sidhe who live in hollow hills) go into the hollow hill of the enemy and blow it up, causing a volcano to erupt, his tower to explode, and a huge blast of wind to hit Gondor, and the spirit of Sauron flies up into the sky.  Sam and Frodo caused a sidhe gaoithe.  (and in Fellowship, the Red Dragon was a red rocket that made three passes over the Shire)

In LoTR, the Fall of Numenor is a direct parallel to the Doom of Valyria, when Numenor was sunk under the waves at the same time that the sacred island of Avallone was shot into space (with the White Tower Tirion). 

Now the elves have to take a space ship to reach the Undying Lands.  So the fairy folk have to ride on the wind/blast off the surface of Earth to reach the Undying Lands, and the main character accompanies them.  The malorn trees are described as boats, masts of magical Otherworldly ships, etc.  Ornus is the mountain ash, Yggdrasil was a mountain ash that literally connected nine world in a cosmic network.

In LoTR, Earendel (the flammifer / lightbringer) was literally launched into space on a magic white ship carrying the last Silmaril to become the Dawn Star.   From space, he came back to Earth to kill the unkillable black dragon Ancalacon, to bring the Dawn.

 

Tyrion makes a  Sidhe Gaoithe

Tyrion is a dwarf (standing in for the fairies/sidhe) and he finds highly explosive material in caches underground, and Stannis is a stand-in for the Stranger/Night King/second moon/black stone dragon that causes the Long Night

(stanna means "vat" or "metal vessel" and it is on the same page as stangair which means "to loiter" and stang means "space" and Lovecraft's wandering oily black stone planet is Yuggoth and uigean means "lonely wanderer" and uaigh means "grave, cave, terror"  The Stranger is a loitering black vessel in space, just like Yuggoth.

Tyrion uses the wildfire to cause a gigantic blast /exploding ship to repel the Night King, and the aftermath of the explosion was compared to the mouth of hell, Hardhome's aftermath is compared to the mouth of hell.  The wildfire caches under castles/churches is foreshadowing of more explosions to come. 

 

And bean sidhe (banshee) was "a woman of faery, depicted as keening as she combed her hair (usually red) and foreboding death and calamity)"  Comet literally means long-haired star, and the Red Comet has long red hair and it forebodes death and calamity.  Earendel was a fairy that turned into a Dawn star.

sidhean / seidean means a "fairy wind" and "blast" and "mine (explosive)" and "a puff" and siog means "streak, stripe, shock"

and there is a phrase urchoid cnuic, "severe harm, a 'hill blast,' harm encountered on a hill, esp. from faeries"  [cnuic = nuke?]

 

In the Wheel of Time, the Aes Sedai live in the White Tower on Tar Valon (Avalon), on an eye shaped island, that was created when the Dragon called down a huge beam of energy and blew himself up.  And importantly, one of the main powers of the Aes Sedai is weather control.  [also, Westeros is a cyclops, and cyclops shoot eye beams/blasts, such as irish villain Balor of the Evil Eye--the evil eye shot blasts, and there is word play on beam: it can be wood or energy]

 

ETA: There is a huge cache of wildfire under the Sept of Baelor, foreshadowing Balor's evil eye blast. 

 

In Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, greekfire/wildfire is naturally found in caves, and there is a huge cache of it under the White Tower, and at the climax the White Tower is described as launching into space.  The Sithi were described as aliens that sailed to Earth in hollow trees in the ancient past, and there is reference to their ships burning--the Sithi came in burning tree-ship comets.

 

In Clark Ashton Smith's Vulthoom, an evil telepathic plant that is described as a heart/tree, landed on Mars as a falling star, lives in hell underground, beneath the main Martian city Ignar Luth. He intends to blast his way out of the caverns in a rocket ship blowing up the city above, in order to invade Earth.  His servants are called Ahai, and he commands three headed dragons.  (in hindi, uthaan means to "raise, lift, ascend" and ulthaan means "leaping, capsize, somersault" and in gaelic ultaighe means "uncouth, cruel, magical"

 

In Larry Niven's World of Ptavvs, and A Relic of the Empire, he has alien trees that generate sap that is highly explosive, that are able to launch themselves into space to colonize other planets. 

 

Lovecraft

And sidhe gaoithe is where Lovecraft got his idea of shuggoths from, which is a recurring theme in many of his stories (At the Mountains of Madness, Colour out of Space, The Tree on the Hill, the Haunter of the Dark, the Whisper in Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, Shadow Over Innsmouth, the Shunned House, Doom that Came to Sarnath) all to some extend use the idea of a malign creature that comes to Earth out of the sky, that is gelatinous/shapeshifting/ or evaporates upon death, that wants to harm mankind.  [see also, the Blob]

In gaelic, poc means "goat" and "blast" and "fairy blow"  and in the Tree on the Hill, the Black Goat is a shape-shifting alien tree that eats humans, and was found on hill that was blasted as if by a torch.  It was Shub Niggurath, that wants to create a Long Night on Earth to terrorize humans.  They send it back into space with a gem that controls the Black Goat/Yuggoth/Shuggoth (like the bloodstone) to save humanity.

Hardhome was described as the sun rising in the North.  The forest fire at Wat's Wood was described as the sun rising.  In gaelic uath means "white thorn" and "solitary, lonely" and "a form or shape, a spectre or phantom, dread, terror, hate" And these are the same descriptors which are given to the Black Goat lonely tree on the hill.  And in Latin vatis means "seer, prophet" 

 

Star Fall

In gaelic there is a phrase sgeith nan reulta  "glutinous substance vulgarly supposed to fall from the stars" (shuggoth from the stars "breath/blast/wind from the stars"?)

The alien meteor from The Color out of Space lands on Earth, it contains a glutinous vampiric almost-invisible monster that sucks the life out of living creatures, is symbiotic with trees/roots, lives in a well, absorbs energy from lightning strikes, and then launches itself back into space.  The area surrounding the impact site becomes the blasted heath, and the launch of the shuggoth is accompanied by a huge blast or gust of interstellar wind.

Black Goat of the Woods = alien meteor = sidhe gaoithe = shuggoth

 

So I looked up the idea of glutinous substance falling from the stars, and it is a real world phenomenon, called star jelly, or Star Fall.  The Daynes followed a falling star, where it landed there is Star Fall, and a White Sword Tower rises up where it landed, and the white magic meteor sword Dawn is kept in the White Sword Tower.  It is describing a weirwood/starfall  landing on Earth and growing a White Tower.  And the White Tower is Dawn = Weirwood = lightbringer, just like Earendel from LoTR becoming the Dawn Star.

 

For that matter, in the Call of Cthulhu, the cthulhu sculptures that were worshiped as idols by the First Men were said to have come from outer space.  The Iron Born found a cthulhu sculpture and used it as a throne.  I have argued that the weirwood is the kraken, and to sit on the Seastone Chair wearing the driftwood crown (antler crown) is a metaphor for a greenseer siting a weirwood throne and the crown is the weirwood circle of trees above his head.  Uran is an alternate spelling of Bran/Vran, and he wears the weirwood crown on a weirwood throne, and he is the Crow's Eye.

So a magic kraken throne/weirwood falls out of the sky, and humans start worshiping it.  And in the Iron Islands were obliterated in an ancient disaster associated with Nagga and the Grey King.  Greyking means "dawn" and gryja means "dawn" and krieken means "dawn" and dagon means "dawn" and in hindi nagadaun means "wormwood" and wormwood in gaelic is Mormont and the red comet is called Mormont's Torch.

The myth about Nagga drowning islands is describing a sidhe gaoithe.  Nagga's rib are a weirwood circle.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I forgot to say that all or almost all settlements north of the Wall have weirwoods at the center of town, so it is very likely that Hardhome had a weirwood or weirwood grove at its center.

[AlaskanSandman]

On 1/17/2022 at 7:14 AM, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

Of all the settlements built and inhabitated by the Free Folks/Wildings, Hardhome is certainly the greatest and most well-known. Six centuries before the start of the series the settlement was in a rising development and was the closest thing to a true town ever built north of the Wall.

The location of Hardhome after all was perfect for the Free Folks to build a true town and port and to start advancing their society with it being located on a sheltered bay and waters deep enough for large ships, with plenty of wood and stone for construction materials, many cave mouths to serve as possible shelters as well as lots of fish, seals and sea cows for food.

However the development of this proto-city and of the Free Folks was ended abruptly around 600 years before AGOT, for reasons that remain mysterious to this day. Hardhome and its inhabitants are said to have burned by terrible fire so high and hot that the Night's Watch thought that it was the sun rising in from the north and that afteward ashes rained down from there for almost half a year. 

The sailors and watchmen who went here to investigate found burned corpses and trees, water choked with swollen corpses and seemingly supernatural screams coming from the caves. After that Hardhome was never ressetled by the wildlings again, with wildness restablishing its rule here, and got a terrible reputation as a haunted place across all over Westeros and even in Essos. 

But what could have happened here to cause the destruction of Hardhome and of its people ? What could have caused this destruction, light and heat ? 

Could it have been a volcanic phenomenon or could it be magic related ? Could it have been something related to the magic of the Old Gods and of the Children of the Forest ? 

Or could it have been the result of an attack by the Valyrians and of their dragons ? Or could the Valyrians have tried a magic ritual, a sort of prelude to the Doom of Valyria here with dangerous and volatile magics here ? 

If yes what could have caused them to do something so terrible and destructive on this proto-town that wasn't a threat to their empire ?

 I tend to believe that the Pro Slavery Valyrians did it. 

This is around the time that Valyrians had built Dragonstone. The later Targaryens dont support slavery and try to prevent anyone else from having dragons or restoring Valyria, which im assuming is the only reason they were welcomed as a barrier against the slavers from the East that remained after Valyria fell.

[Wolfcrow]

On 1/17/2022 at 5:14 PM, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

Could it have been a volcanic phenomenon or could it be magic related ?

Volcanic eruption could be a great explanation if, people had heard the eruption or something, it's weird that they didn't hear anything. When they went to see what happened, you could still see the corpses etc etc and they didn't seem to notice a volcano arround, bc magma and lava is going for quite some time after , they should have seen something, anything. To me this sounds more like a summerhall situation, a huge fire (bc of magic) that got out of hand pretty quickly, now was it on purpose, was it from them or people from Essos? Hard to know. Valyrians tried more than once to make hybrids and in general test blood magic on humans and shit like that and they chose places far from home ex. Sothoryos, so not very weird. 

Quote

When Gorm was murdered in a drunken brawl, however, Wyllis found himself in mortal danger and made his way back to Oldtown. There he set down his account, only to vanish the year after the illuminations were done. It was said in the Citadel that he was last seen at the docks, looking for a ship that would take him to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.

It seems like he knew something.

[Egged]

It became too civilized, essentially like a bustling colony. The CotF could not allow that, just like Harrenhal.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

Somebody powerful didn't want civilization in the north.