betha blackwood Archives - History of Westeros

House Blackwood: Part 2 – Ravens, Dragons, Stags & Wolves

Part 2 of our House Blackwood series continues – you can find House Blackwood: Part 1 – The Time of the Tree here. It’s clear GRRM has placed the Blackwoods carefully; they are an important part of several of the most important houses’ ancestry, with strong associations with mystical elements.

In this episode, we take a look at all the heroes of House Blackwood since the coming of the Targaryens. We have lots of thoughts and ideas of what’s coming next for them as Winter and the Dragons come. They are tied to both…

North/River Shipping

Lord Stark had marched south with a great host, made up in large part of men unwanted and unneeded in the North, whose return would bring great hardship and mayhaps even death for the loved ones they had left behind. Legend (and Mushroom) tells us that it was Lady Alysanne who suggested an answer.

The lands along the Trident were full of widows, she reminded Lord Stark; women, many burdened with young children, who had sent their husbands off to fight with one lord or another, only for them to fall in battle. With winter at hand, strong backs and willing hands would be welcome in many a hearth and home. In the end, more than a thousand northmen accompanied Black Aly and her nephew Lord Benjicot when they returned to the riverlands after the royal wedding.

“A wolf for every widow,” Mushroom japed, “he will warm her bed in winter, and gnaw her bones come spring.”

Yet hundreds of marriages were made at the so-called Widow Fairs held at Raventree, Riverrun, Stoney Sept, the Twins, and Fairmarket. Those northmen who did not wish to marry instead swore their swords to lords both great and small as guards and men-at-arms.

A few, sad to say, did turn to outlawry and met evil ends, but for the most part, Lady Alysanne’s matchmaking was a great success. The resettled northmen not only strengthened the riverlords who welcomed them, particularly House Tully and House Blackwood, but also helped revive and spread the worship of the old gods south of the Neck.

GOAT Black Aly Blackwood

Huntress, horse-breaker, and archer without peer, Black Aly had little of a woman’s softness about her. Many thought her to be of that same ilk as Sabitha Frey, for they were oft in one another’s company, and had been known to share a tent whilst on the march. Yet in King’s Landing, whilst accompanying her young nephew Benjicot at court and council, she had met Cregan Stark and conceived a liking for the stern northman. And Lord Cregan, a widower these past three years, had responded in kind.

To him gathered Benjicot Blackwood of Raventree, already a seasoned warrior at three-and-ten; his fierce young aunt, Black Aly, with three hundred bows; Lady Sabitha Frey, the merciless and grasping Lady of the Twins, Lord Hugo Vance of Wayfarer’s Rest, Lord Jorah Mallister of Seagard; Lord Roland Darry of Darry; aye, and even Humfrey Bracken, Lord of Stone Hedge, whose house had hitherto supported King Aegon’s cause.

Missy Blackwood

Aegon the Fourth had died long before Jaime had been born, but he recalled enough of the history of his reign to guess what must have happened next. “Only later he put the Bracken girl aside and took up with a Blackwood, was that the way of it?”

“Lady Melissa,” Hoster confirmed. “Missy, they called her. There’s a statue of her in our godswood. She was much more beautiful than Barba Bracken.”

– Jaime I, ADWD

Images

The Tragedy of Summerhall

The Tragedy of Summerhall was a spectacular attempt by Aegon V to hatch dragon eggs, and it failed spectacularly, killing most to all of the participants plus at least some, probably most of, the witnesses. Summerhall has some really surprising aspects to it, and explains quite a lot more than we could’ve hoped it would, despite so much of it still remaining mysterious. Not just in what happened, but in how it impacts the more recent, and even the current, ASOIAF storyline.

This episode will have a second (shorter) part focusing on the aftermath of Summerhall, examining the effects on Aerys, Rhaegar, and the realm… Listen to part 2 here!

The primary topics in this episode:

History of Summerhall
The Realm of Aegon V, Treason & Turmoil
Dragon Dreams
Enablers: The Wisdom & the Ghost
The Ritual

What became of the dream of dragons was a grievous tragedy born in a moment of joy. In the fateful year 259 AC, the king summoned many of those closest to him to Summerhall, his favorite castle, there to celebrate the impending birth of his first great-grandchild, a boy later named Rhaegar, to his grandson Aerys and granddaughter Rhaella, the children of Prince Jaehaerys.

“Treason and turmoil followed, as night follows day, ending at Summerhall in sorcery, fire, and grief.”

The last years of Aegon’s reign were consumed by a search for ancient lore about the dragon breeding of Valyria, and it was said that Aegon commissioned journeys to places as far away as Asshai-by-the-Shadow with the hopes of finding texts and knowledge that had not been preserved in Westeros.

Dreams

“My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one.”

As he grew older, Aegon V had come to dream of dragons flying once more above the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. In this, he was not unlike his predecessors, who brought septons to pray over the last eggs, mages to work spells over them, and maesters to pore over them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK25XfDFsIM

The Tragedy of Summerhall (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK25XfDFsIM)

The dragons are done. The Targaryens tried to bring them back half a dozen times. And made fools of themselves, or corpses.

Book Discussion: World of Ice and Fire Overview

In this episode, we give our first impressions of The World of Ice and Fire. We discuss all of the immediate revelations. The latter half of the episode contains discoveries more related to the ‘current events’ of the series.

Special attention is paid to the Kingdom of Sarnor, other ancient cultures, and the mysterious oily black stone that keeps popping up. There is, of course, a lot of discussion on House Targaryen. We also talk at length about the sections on Dorne. The mystery of Asshai’s children is also debated. Who is Hyrkoon the Hero? What’s the deal with Bonetown? Join us on a journey through the world of ice and fire. It is also a journey back to 2014 now!

On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol. A greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high. The people of this isle are believed by some to be descended from those who carved the Toad Stone, for there is an unpleasant fishlike aspect to their faces, and many have webbed hands and feet. If so, they are the sole surviving remnant of this forgotten race.

Such questions abound even to this day. Before the Doom of Valyria, maesters and archmaesters oft traveled to the Freehold in search of answers, but none were ever found. Septon Barth’s claim that the Valyrians came to Westeros because their priests prophesied that the Doom of Man would come out of the land beyond the narrow sea can safely be dismissed as nonsense, as can many of Barth’s queerer beliefs and suppositions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq4DBiY-ej0

World of Ice and Fire: Overview Discussion (spoilers) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq4DBiY-ej0)

NOOOOO, SALLOSH!

For scholars and students of history, the fall of Sallosh by the Silver Shore was especially tragic. For when that City of Scholars burned, its great library was not spared, and most of the history of the Tall Men and the peoples who had gone before them were lost for all time.