![]() ![]() "The Andals were the first, a race of tall, fair-haired warriors who came with steel and fire and the seven-pointed star of the new gods painted on their chests. "So long as the kingdoms of the First Men held sway, the Pact endured, all through the Age of Heroes and the Long Night and the birth of the Seven Kingdoms, yet finally there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea. It is unkind to repay them for their kindness by filling the boys' heads with folly." ![]() The Starks have treated you more gently than you deserve. "Woman, by rights you ought to be dead or in chains. That's where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races." "North of the Wall, things are different. "Here, they are," said Osha, as she bit off the end of the last bandage with her teeth. "But the children of the forest are all gone now, you said." The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes."īran's fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. " The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children's, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. As the First Men carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Men were by the faces in the trees. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. They came with bronze swords and great leathern shields, riding horses. "But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. "They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms. "In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. "They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms," he said. Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. ![]()
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