Waking Wun Wun

 Of the giants beyond the Wall in A Song of Ice and Fire, Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun is the most heavily featured. After being found at the weirwood grove of nine, the giant also called Wun Wun comes to live in a tower at Castle Black by the end of A Dance with Dragons.

The imagery used around the giants is very evocative, and it can help highlight some of the subtext in their depiction. There are two occasions when people attempt to sneak up and cut Wun Wun, which could be read as comments on the legitimacy of Tormund’s “giant’s babe” story:

“So I found me a sleeping giant, cut open her belly, and crawled up right inside her.”
A Storm of Swords, Jon II

 

Jon and Wun Wun by Marc Fisher

 

The Weirwood Grove of Nine

 

We first meet the giant Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun when Lord Commander Jon Snow takes a party of new recruits to say their vows before the weirwood trees in the grove of nine.

A few moments later Tom [Barleycorn] was there. "Wildlings," he told Jon, softly. "In the grove."

Jon brought the riders to a halt. "How many?"

"I counted nine. No guards. Some dead, might be, or sleeping. Most look to be women. One child, but there's a giant too. Just the one that I saw.”
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

There are nine “wildlings”, free folk, at the weirwood grove of nine, and one giant.

Ahead he glimpsed a pale white trunk that could only be a weirwood, crowned with a head of dark red leaves… The weirwoods rose in a circle around the edges of the clearing. There were nine, all roughly of the same age and size.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

There are nine weirwoods, but at first Jon only sees one, like the one giant rather than the nine free folk. There is a symbolic association between weirwoods and giants that we will see recur.

"Spread out and form a crescent. I want to close in on the grove from three sides. Keep the men to your right and left in sight, so the gaps do not widen. The snow should muffle our steps. Less chance of blood if we take them unawares."
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

They plan to approach the free folk as quietly as they can. Will they wake the sleeping giant?

Jon Snow reached back and pulled Longclaw from his sheath. He looked to right and left, gave Satin and Horse a nod, watched them pass it on to the men beyond. They rushed the grove together, kicking through drifts of old snow with no sound but their breathing. Ghost ran with them, a white shadow at Jon's side.

The fire in the center of the grove was a small sad thing, ashes and embers and a few broken branches burning slow and smoky. Even then, it had more life than the wildlings huddled near it. Only one of them reacted when Jon stepped from the brush. That was the child, who began to wail, clutching at his mother's ragged cloak. The woman raised her eyes and gasped. By then the grove was ringed by rangers, sliding past the bone-white trees, steel glinting in black-gloved hands, poised for slaughter.

The giant was the last to notice them. He had been asleep, curled up by the fire, but something woke him—the child's cry, the sound of snow crunching beneath black boots, a sudden indrawn breath. 
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

Here we are given three sounds that might have woken the giant. Jon thought they were making no sound but their breathing, and a gasp is not very loud. If one of these sounds woke Wun Wun I’d guess it was the child’s cry.

When he stirred it was as if a boulder had come to life.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

This line reminds me of the trolls in ‘The Hobbit’ that turn to stone in daylight. It's also reminiscent of the legend of the Horn of Winter:

And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter, and woke giants from the earth.
A Storm of Swords, Jon II, A Dance with Dragons, Jon III, & A Dance with Dragons, Jon XIII

And when you consider the Night’s Watch vows, it only makes sense they would be the ones to wake the giant up:

I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.
A Clash of Kings, Jon VIII

Let's go back to the waking giant:

He heaved himself into a sitting position with a snort, pawing at his eyes with hands as big as hams to rub the sleep away … until he saw Iron Emmett, his sword shining in his hand. Roaring, he came leaping to his feet, and one of those huge hands closed around a maul and jerked it up.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

Wun Wun slept through the Night’s Watch’s approach and noticed them later than the humans, but he did wake up, and as soon as he saw Iron Emmett with a knife, he was on his feet and roaring.

Perhaps it was the smell that woke him; giants seem to have a strong sense of smell:

Rats' eyes no larger than beads were almost lost within folds of horny flesh, but they snuffled constantly, smelling as much as they saw.
A Storm of Swords, Jon II

The giants have that in common with Ghost. Through Ghost’s nose, Jon can smell his black brothers:

Jon smelled Tom Barleycorn before he saw him. Or was it Ghost who smelled him? Of late, Jon Snow sometimes felt as if he and the direwolf were one, even awake… He could smell Horse's unwashed breeches, the sweet scent Satin combed into his beard.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

Whatever it was that woke him, Wun Wun is awake now and roaring.

The giant bellowed again, a sound that shook the leaves in the trees…
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

Shaking the leaves in the trees reminds us of how the Old Gods communicate through the weirwood trees. Osha explains this to Bran by the weirwood heart tree in the Winterfell godswood:

"Tell me what you meant, about hearing the gods."

Osha studied him. "You asked them and they're answering. Open your ears, listen, you'll hear."

Bran listened. "It's only the wind," he said after a moment, uncertain. "The leaves are rustling."

"Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?... They see you, boy. They hear you talking. That rustling, that's them talking back."
A Game of Thrones, Bran VI

Shaking the leaves of weirwood trees with wind is how the gods talk, and the giant’s bellow shakes the leaves of the trees in a weirwood grove. Giants are associated in a symbolic way with the Old Gods of the weirwood trees.

[The giant] slammed his maul against the ground. The shaft of it was six feet of gnarled oak, the head a stone as big as a loaf of bread. The impact made the ground shake.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII

The long wooden part of a maul is actually called a handle, but the author chooses the word “shaft” alongside “head” and “gnarled oak” to evoke a ‘giant’ morning erection – Wun Wun has just woken up.

Comparing the head of the maul to a loaf of bread reminds me of the giant’s rhyme from the folk story, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’: “be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread”.

Most obviously, though, the oak-handled maul against the ground is like an oak tree. This is taken even further when Jon later dreams of giants.

That night he dreamt of wildlings howling from the woods, advancing to the moan of warhorns and the roll of drums... Giants lumbered amongst them, forty feet tall, with mauls the size of oak trees.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon XII

The mauls in the dream not only resemble oak trees, they are the size of them too.

Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood.
A Game of Thrones, Eddard V

There’s an oak tree in place of a weirwood as a heart tree in the Red Keep godswood. Giants, weirwoods, and oak trees all share a symbolic association.

 

Hardin’s Tower  

 

The Night’s Watch are able to calm Wun Wun down, and bring him back to Castle Black with them:

Wun Wun gaped at [Patchface] with fascination, but when the giant reached for him the fool hopped back away, jingling. "Oh no, oh no, oh no." That brought Wun Wun lurching to his feet. The queen grabbed hold of Princess Shireen and pulled her back, her knights reached for their swords… the boldest of the queen's knights moved forward, steel in hand. Jon raised an arm to block his path. "You do not want to anger him. Sheathe your steel, ser.”
A Dance with Dragons, Jon IX

After seeing Wun Wun’s reaction to Iron Emmett's knife in the grove, Jon is rightly concerned about sharp blades being drawn around the giant.

“Perhaps m'lord could send out some wine to warm us?"

"For you. Not him." Wun Wun had never tasted wine until he came to Castle Black, but once he had, he had taken a gigantic liking to it. Too much a liking. Jon had enough to contend with just now without adding a drunken giant to the mix.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon IX

Jon tells Leathers not to give Wun Wun any, but we know the giant likes to drink wine.

My own men guard Hardin's Tower, not the queen's. And Wun Wun sleeps in the entry hall."
A Dance with Dragons, Jon XI

Wun Wun sleeps in Hardin’s Tower. He was probably sleeping when he was attacked:

The screaming had stopped by the time they came to Hardin's Tower, but Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun was still roaring. The giant was dangling a bloody corpse by one leg... The dead man's sword arm was yards away, the snow beneath it turning red.

"Let him go," Jon shouted. "Wun Wun, let him go."

Wun Wun did not hear or did not understand. The giant was bleeding himself, with sword cuts on his belly and his arm. He swung the dead knight against the grey stone of the tower, again and again and again, until the man's head was red and pulpy as a summer melon.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon XIII

Somebody was able to sneak up on Wun Wun, likely while he was sleeping, possibly drunk on wine, and cut him on his sword and belly. But the giant woke up and reacted violently, easily smashing the knight’s head to a pulp.

After reviewing two attempts to sneak up and cut Wun Wun while he slept, we have seen that it might be easier to sneak up on a giant than a human, especially if you don't have a prominent scent. It might even be possible to cut the giant before waking them up, especially if the giant is drunk or sleeping. However, the giant will wake up and start smashing. Climbing inside the giant's still breathing body to keep warm during the winter does not seem to be possible. Based on these scenes, the author seems to be illustrating that it is not possible to sneak up on a living giant, slice them open, and climb inside without waking and angering them. Thus, the evidence in the text shows Tormund's “giants babe” story can't be the full truth.

There also appears to be symbolic connections between giants and weirwoods in the narrative, that may also link to the Old Gods, oak trees, and a metaphorical erection.

In future articles I will further examine Tormund’s surreal origin stories, and try to piece together their meaning.