Old Nan's stories
Book 1
Game of Thrones
The first Bran's chapter, he is going to see the execution.
He [Bran] remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
The same chapter, Bran talks to Eddard.
“He was a wildling,” Bran said. “They carry off women and sell them to the Others.”
His lord father smiled. “Old Nan has been telling you stories again."
The same chapter, Catelyn talks to Eddard.
“There are darker things beyond the Wall.” She glanced behind her at the heart tree, the pale bark and red eyes, watching, listening, thinking its long slow thoughts. His smile was gentle. “You listen to too many of Old Nan’s stories.”
The second Bran's chapter, right before he sees Jaime and Cersei.
His father would be the Hand of the King, and they were going to live in the red castle at King’s Landing, the castle the Dragonlords had built. Old Nan said there were ghosts there, and dungeons where terrible things had been done, and dragon heads on the walls.
Same chapter, further on.
Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes.
The fourth Bran's chapter, he is paralyzed.
“It was just a lie,” he said bitterly, remembering the crow from his dream. “I can’t fly. I can’t even run.”
“Crows are all liars,” Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. “I know a story about a crow."
“I hate your stupid stories.”
The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. “My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too.”
[...]
“I know a story about a boy who hated stories,” Old Nan said.
[...]
“I could tell you the story about Brandon the Builder,” Old Nan said. “That was always your favorite.”
Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head.
“That’s not my favorite,” he said. “My favorites were the scary ones.”
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”
“You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously.
“The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”
“Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only...
Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”
Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.
“Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds-”
The door opened with a bang, and Bran’s heart leapt up into his mouth in sudden fear, but it was only Maester Luwin, with Hodor looming in the stairway behind him.
The same chapter, Yoren tells that Benjen is missing.
All Bran could think of was Old Nan’s story of the Others and the last hero, hounded through the white woods by dead men and spiders big as hounds. He was afraid for a moment, until he remembered how that story ended. “The children will help him,” he blurted, “the children of the forest!”
The fifth Eddard's chapter
“Dark wings, dark words,” Ned murmured. It was a proverb Old Nan had taught him as a boy.
The third Arya's chapter.
Huge stones had been set into the curving walls as steps, circling down and down, dark as the steps to hell that Old Nan used to tell them of.
The same chapter, further on, Arya talks to Eddard.
“A wizard,” said Ned, unsmiling. “Did he have a long white beard and tall pointed hat speckled with stars?”
“No! It wasn’t like Old Nan’s stories. He didn’t look like a wizard, but the fat one said he was.”
The third Sansa's chapter.
When the Knight of Flowers had spoken up, she’d been sure she was about to see one of Old Nan’s stories come to life.
The seventh Jon's chapter, two frozen bodies are brought to the Wall.
Unbidden, he thought back on the tales that Old Nan used to tell them, when he was a boy at Winterfell. He could almost hear her voice again, and the click-click-click of her needles. In that darkness, the Others came riding, she used to say, dropping her voice lower and lower. Cold and dead they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins. Holdfasts and cities and kingdoms of men allfell before them, as they moved south on pale dead horses, leading hosts of the slain. They fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children...
The sixth Bran's chapter, Bran is talking to Robb.
"Lord Roose never says a word, he only looks at me, and all I can think of is that room they have in the Dreadfort, where the Boltons hang the skins of their enemies.”
“That’s just one of Old Nan’s stories,” Bran said. A note of doubt crept into his voice. “Isn’t it?”
The fifth Arya's chapter.
Old Nan used to tell stories of boys who stowed away on trading galleys and sailed off into all kinds of adventures.
The seventh Bran's chapter.
“There was a knight once who couldn’t see,” Bran said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrik went on below. “Old Nan told me about him. He had a long staff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once.”
“Symeon Star-Eyes,” Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book. “When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool. A fable from the Age of Heroes.”
The same chapter, further on, in the crypts.
He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive. “That one is Jon Stark. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor. His son was Rickard Stark, not my father’s father but another Rickard, he took the Neck away from the Marsh King and married his daughter. Theon Stark’s the real thin one with the long hair and the skinny beard. They called him the ‘Hungry Wolf,’ because he was always at war. That’s a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father’s ships in grief. There’s Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts. And that’s Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt. He was the last King in the North and the first Lord of Winterfell, after he yielded to Aegon the Conqueror. Oh, there, he’s Cregan Stark. He fought with Prince Aemon once, and the Dragonknight said he’d never faced a finer swordsman.” They were almost at the end now, and Bran felt a sadness creeping over him. “And there’s my grandfather, Lord Rickard, who was beheaded by Mad King Aerys. His daughter Lyanna and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him. Not me, another Brandon, my father’s brother.
They’re not supposed to have statues, that’s only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done.”
The same chapter, further on.
“Old Nan says the children knew the songs of the trees, that they could fly like birds and swim like fish and talk to the animals,” Bran said. “She says that they made music so beautiful that it made you cry like a little baby just to hear it.”
“And all this they did with magic,” Maester Luwin said, distracted.
I know some of it is not really relevant (wizards and knights and galleys), but I have listed all of it just in case.
