What are the wildlings' origins?

[Baelish for President]

Hi all, this is my first new thread, so apologies if this has been brought up before, but I couldn't find anything in my searches on the forum.

Basically, I've been re-reading Jon's chapters in ADwD, and I started thinking about the long-standing enmity between the Night's Watch and the free folk. I was wondering if anyone had any views on how wildlings ended up north of the wall in the first place. The way I see it, there are three (albeit fairly similar) options. Obviously it's possible for there to be different wildlings belonging to all three groups, but these are just the choices as I see them. I'd love any opinions on whether the revelations of the next two books will shed any light on this question, if there is a 4th or further possibilities, or if it's something I should already know and have completely missed from the books!

1) The wildlings were trapped beyond the Wall when it was built 8000 years ago, after the Long Night. They lived further north than the line which Bran the Builder and his friends decided was their border, and were given no notice of this project. They were therefore forced to spend the rest of their lives in exile with the Others. The "free from kneelers" cultural attitude was one that developed over time, naturally, as it's practically impossible to march over to someone's tribe to get them to bend the knee when that march is hundreds of miles and over several feet of snow, so hierachies couldn't be formed.

This seemed the most logical to me at first, but I don't get why there was no way to warn the people to come south. If the Others were no longer an immediate threat, then surely in the "Age of Heroes", there'd be people willing to go north and say "Hi, we're building a gigantic wall of ice to keep the Others up here, and building & fortifying 19 castles along it to defend us in case they ever come back. Would you like to pack your stuff and come with us?" If they were still a threat, but had just been shepherded north by Azor Ahai, then the nature of his "victory" seems temporary at best, and greatly exaggerated by future generations (although I suppose legends often are). Also if they were at full strength, it eliminates Azor Ahai as a possible answer for why they have been dormant for millenia. I can only think of two alternatives though, and neither seems particularly likely...

2) They decided to stay there despite knowing that the Wall was being built, either moving north deliberately to get away from the kneelers (was the feudal system present before the Andals arrived?), or being told what was happening and deciding to stay anyway. To me, this is only a real possibility if the consensus on the Others was that they were gone forever, otherwise living north of the Wall is a suicide attempt.

3) At some point between the Wall's erection (nope, not that kind of erection) and Aegon's Landing, people/tribes decided to leave Westeros and set themselves up in the Land of Always Winter instead. If these made up the majority of wildlings, I reckon it would have to be at least 7000 years ago, since the last time the Night's Watch had to deal with Others appears to have been the whole Night's King fiasco, so there must have been a sizeable host of wildlings to deal with fairly soon after that, or the NW would have fallen to its decrepit 299AL state much more quickly if they'd had no one to fight for more than a thousand years!

So in my mind, there's not really any compelling reason for humans living that far north. The mountain clans in the Vale (and more recently the BwB) have lived in the south with no problems concerning knee-bending of any sort, and Westeros seems to be pretty big, so they could surely settle somewhere else in the north (not the Gift) and raid in much the same way, but without being wight-fodder as well.

GRRM has said that we'll be looking at the north properly in the next books, and through Bran we have free access to history that doesn't violate the POV system. So could we find out anything more about the wildings? Or is this a thoroughly uninteresting "mystery" for most of you?

[TheMysteriousOne]

The first scenario is the most likely and what I think occured.

[Honest Bill]

I'd say they were probably first men, but there were so few of them maybe just a handful of tribes living up there that nobody really knew of them, or if they did they didn't really give a damn enough to go and warn them.

Of course nobody really knows what happened so far in the past. But you're right about Bran. I bet his chapters are going to be really really interesting from now on.

[A Man Has Said]

Some wildlings descended from people who were north of the Wall before it was built. They may not always be that wild, as the Thenns for instance have some idea of social structure, and may not physically bend the knee to the Magnar but do recognize his authority (and it's obviously an inherited position, just like south of the wall.)

Some others may have just been political radicals whose choices were pretty limited by the feudal system in the south. Basically criminals had the choice of taking their punishment (beheading, castration for rapists, long prison terms for other crimes) or joining the Night's Watch. Dissidents had the unofficial choice of either remaining a serf - barely better than slavery and worse in some respects - 'rising up' and being labeled a criminal, or running away up north beyond the laws and conventions of Westeros. Those would have the most ingrained opposition to the ways of the kneelers, because they had invested their whole lives in rejecting them.

Ironically, they are still in need of some structure when it arises, such as the ad hoc 'government' presented by Mance Rayder.

When you're facing an existential threat you're still more likely to survive if you've got some kind of organization and discipline.

[Kanali]

They were pretty much just First Men like everyone else, except they lived far north where there were all manner of creatures like Others and Giants, so when Bran the Builder raised the Wall to keep all those things out, the Wildlings were probably just sealed in with them, either because Brandon didn't care to warn them, didn't want them in his lands, or because they refused to leave.

[Magic 8 Ball]

Probably most did come south before the wall was built. It would only take a few very remote uninformed people or crazy eccentrics who refused to leave or come south to repopulate the area north of the wall after 8,000 years after all.

Some might have fled north of the wall rather than take the Black to avoid prosecution or a blood-feud, during a time that the Others were thought to be gone, so gradual very small migration with a very small founder population could possibly work as well.

[Eli Stark]

It's also possible that these tribes that had were unfriendly to the northern kingdoms even before the long night. In that case, when the Wall went up, they were not welcome in the northern kingdoms. Perhaps the Starks and other northern kingdoms figured those people were so different and the history was so bad, they just figured those people could defend themselves from the Others. Would be similar to how Tywin said that if the North wanted to rebel, then they could deal with the Wall and wildling problem themselves.