Camp Summerhall

Tormund's eldest son stood near the horses, talking with Leathers. Tall Toregg, he was called amongst the free folk.
A Dance With Dragons Jon XI 

 

The free folk call him Tall Toregg, but eventually Jon starts to think of him as Toregg the Tall.

 

Tormund had once thought to make himself the King-Beyond-the-Wall, before Mance had bested him. Toregg the Tall might well be dreaming the same dream.
A Dance With Dragons Jon XI

Toregg, Son of Tormund by Alejandro Kay ©

 

👑🍳 The name Toregg the Tall alludes to both Egg, known as Aegon the Unlikely, and his lifelong friend Ser Duncan the Tall. The two feature in the ‘Tales of Dunk and Egg’ series of novellas, and are figures of Westorosi history referenced in A Song of Ice and Fire. Toregg is tall and strong like Dunk, but he might be like Egg in other ways.

 

Light a Fire Under Them

 

While Jon and Tormund are overseeing the free folk passing through the Wall, Tormund notices that it’s getting late:

Tormund nodded toward the sky. "The clouds roll in. Already it grows darker, colder. Your Wall no longer weeps. Look." He turned and called out to his son Toregg. "Ride back to the camp and get them moving. The sick ones and the weak ones, the slugabeds and cravens, get them on their bloody feet. Set their bloody tents afire if you must. The gate must close at nightfall. Any man not through the Wall by then had best pray the Others get to him afore I do. You hear?"

"I hear." Toregg put his heels into his horse and galloped back down the column.
A Dance With Dragons Jon XII

👑🍳 As King, Egg was responsible for burning down the Targaryen castle of Summerhall in a failed attempt to hatch dragon eggs.

😜 But Tormund was joking, wasn't he? It's a figure of speech, a hyperbole. They're not really going to set fire to tents just to get people moving…

 

By late afternoon the snow was falling steadily, but the river of wildlings had dwindled to a stream. Columns of smoke rose from the trees where their camp had been. 

"Toregg," Tormund explained. "Burning the dead. Always some who go to sleep and don't wake up. You find them in their tents, them as have tents, curled up and froze. Toregg knows what to do."
A Dance With Dragons Jon XII

Jon heard Tormund tell Toregg to set people’s tents on fire to get them on the march, but this unsolicited explanation from Tormund presents an alternative interpretation. Jon can rest assured; Toregg is only burning the dead. 

🤨 Or is Tormund lying? 

 

Pants on Fire 

One of the responsibilities Tormund's band had in Mance Rayder’s column was to serve as whips:

The rest, divided into small bands under the likes of Rattleshirt, Jarl, Tormund Giantsbane, and the Weeper, served as outriders, foragers, and whips, galloping up and down the column endlessly to keep it moving in a more or less orderly fashion.
A Storm Of Swords Jon II

It is not clear how much force is needed to keep the column orderly. Did they literally whip people?

The stream was no more than a trickle by the time Toregg emerged from the wood. With him rode a dozen mounted warriors armed with spears and swords. "My rear guard," Tormund said, with a gap-toothed smile. "You crows have rangers. So do we. Them I left in camp in case we were attacked before we all got out."

"Your best men."

"Or my worst. Every man o' them has killed a crow."
A Dance With Dragons Jon XII

Tormund compares his rear guard to the Night’s Watch rangers. The rangers are the black brothers that venture beyond the Wall; but to the free folk, rangers are killers. Tormund sees his rear guard as their counterpart, even telling Jon they are his worst men, crow-killers all.

😜 Toregg and the rear guard certainly seem capable of forcing the free folk to join the march against their will, nothing funny about that.

 Trees in snow, by Elina Volkova ©

Pyrophobia

 

 “Get them moving. The sick ones and the weak ones, the slugabeds and cravens, get them on their bloody feet. Set their bloody tents afire if you must.”
A Dance With Dragons Jon XII

Those who are sick, weak, or lazy may need help to get moving, but what is delaying the cravens? Are some free folk scared to go through the Wall?

Jon heard the answer to this from one of the free folk that the Night’s Watch found at the grove of nine:

"The gods are here," one of the old men said. "This was as good a place to die as any."

"The Wall is only a few hours south of here," said Jon. "Why not seek shelter there? Others yielded. Even Mance."

The wildlings exchanged looks. Finally one said, "We heard stories. The crows burned all them that yielded."

"Even Mance hisself," the woman added.

Melisandre, Jon thought, you and your red god have much and more to answer for.
A Dance With Dragons Jon VII

They are scared that if they go through the Wall, they will be burned. So Tormund, his sons, and his “rear guard”, will burn anyone that doesn’t go through the Wall. Now the cravens have no excuse.

😜 Tormund was probably serious when ordering Toregg to force the free folk to march by burning their tents.

🤨 So does that mean Tormund was lying to Jon when he claimed Toregg was burning the dead?

Torwynd Rising

 

The grin melted away like snow in summer. "I am not the man I was at Ruddy Hall. Seen too much death, and worse things too. My sons …" Grief twisted Tormund's face. "Dormund was cut down in the battle for the Wall, and him still half a boy. One o' your king's knights did for him, some bastard all in grey steel with moths upon his shield. I saw the cut, but my boy was dead before I reached him. And Torwynd … it was the cold claimed him. Always sickly, that one. He just up and died one night. The worst o' it, before we ever knew he'd died he rose pale with them blue eyes. Had to see to him m'self. That was hard, Jon." Tears shone in his eyes. "He wasn't much of a man, truth be told, but he'd been me little boy once, and I loved him."
A Dance With Dragons Jon XI

Tormund’s son Torwynd died of cold, and returned as a wight. Tormund had to fight the zombie himself.

🤨 It doesn't seem like a fabricated story, what Tormund describes is plausible from what we know of A Song of Ice and Fire magic, and he appears to become genuinely emotional talking about it. In all likelihood the story is true.

Given what happened to Torwynd, the rest of Tormund’s children would probably have been taught to burn bodies that freeze to death.

 

Honesty and Deception

 

😜 When Tormund tells Toregg to burn down the tents of any remaining free folk, we assume it is hyperbole; but there are signs he was being deadly serious.

But when Jon sees the fires, Tormund has another explanation.

🤨 He was probably not lying when he said:

• the fires were started by Toregg
• they find free folk that have died of cold
• Toregg knows to burn the bodies. 

 

However, by sharing these facts, he seems to mislead Jon into believing that Toregg is only burning corpses, when it seems:

• Toregg and the rear guard are burning the tents of any remaining free folk, and
• some of the free folk are crossing the Wall against their will 

The Hoax of Joramun

Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire recall the refrain “And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth”, and know that it is about the legendary King Beyond-the-Wall bringing down the Wall. But they don't seem to know what it means to wake giants from the earth, or exactly how that relates to the Wall falling.

The horn is a riddle to the fan community as well; which of the ancient horns we see is truly Joramun’s horn, and which are fake? Is there a magic horn at all, and if not, where did the legend come from? Can the precious truth be heard amidst the blare of deception?

Conversations about the Horn of Winter test Jon Snow, Mance Rayder, and Tormund on their ability to lie and deceive, like a version of the lying game played by Arya as part of her training at the House of Black and White.

Heimdall an der Himmelsbrücke, by Emil Doepler, 1905

 

Tricksy Birds

When Jon is first brought to Mance Rayder, King-beyond-the-Wall, he is questioned:

🧵 Mance Rayder – "What brings you up the Milkwater, so far from the fires of home?" (to Rattleshirt) "How many were they?"
☠️ Rattleshirt, the Lord of Bones – "Five. Three's dead and the boy's here. T'other went up a mountainside where no horse could follow."
🧵 Mance Rayder – (to Jon) "Was it only the five of you? Or are more of your brothers skulking about?"
🐺 Jon Snow – (misleading) "We were four and the Halfhand. Qhorin was worth twenty common men."
🧵 Mance Rayder  – 🙂 "Some thought so. Still . . . a boy from Castle Black with rangers from the Shadow Tower? How did that come to be?"
🐺 Jon Snow – (lying) "The Lord Commander sent me to the Halfhand for seasoning, so he took me on his ranging."
🥉 Styr the Magnar – ☹️ "Ranging, you call it . . . why would crows come ranging up the Skirling Pass?"
🐺 Jon Snow – (truthful) "The villages were deserted. It was as if all the free folk had vanished."
🧵 Mance Rayder  –  "Vanished, aye. And not just the free folk. Who told you where we were, Jon Snow?"
🎅🏻 Tormund  – (snort) "It were Craster, or I'm a blushing maid. I told you, Mance, that creature needs to be shorter by a head."
🧵 Mance  –  (to Tormund, irritated look) "Tormund, some day try thinking before you speak. I know it was Craster. I asked Jon to see if he would tell it true."
🎅🏻 Tormund  – "Har." (spit) "Well, I stepped in that!" (to Jon, grinning) "See, lad, that's why he's king and I'm not. I can outdrink, outfight, and outsing him, and my member's thrice the size o' his, but Mance has cunning. He was raised a crow, you know, and the crow's a tricksy bird."
🧵 Mance  –  (to Rattleshirt) "I would speak with the lad alone, my Lord of Bones. Leave us, all of you."
🎅🏻 Tormund  –  "What, me as well?"
🧵 Mance  –  "No, you especially,"
🎅🏻 Tormund  –  "I eat in no hall where I'm not welcome. Me and the hens are leaving." (takes a chicken) "Har"
Dialogue from A Storm of Swords, Jon I

Mance was withholding information to test Jon’s honesty, and Tormund just blurts out the truth. Mance clears the tent so that it doesn't happen again.

🧵 Mance Rayder – Tormund spoke truly, the black crow is a tricksy bird, that's so . . . but I was a crow when you were no bigger than the babe in Dalla's belly, Jon Snow. So take care not to play tricksy with me."
Dialogue from A Storm of Swords, Jon I

👵🏻 "Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. 
A Game of Thrones, Bran IV

So according to Mance, crows like him and Jon are “tricksy”, and Old Nan agrees they're liars. We even see Jon lie about Qhorin. However, Tormund spoke truly.

Big Black Horn

After rejoining the Night’s Watch, Jon is sent as an envoy to treat with Mance. This time, Mance doesn't even let Tormund in the room.

🧵 Mance – "Come inside. The rest of you, wait here."
🎅🏻 Tormund – "What, even me?"
🧵 Mance – "Particularly you. Always."
Dialogue from A Storm of Swords, Jon X

Given it's a similar exchange to the last time he was excluded, likely it's the same reason: Mance may need to lie to Jon, and Tormund might spoil the deception.

There were other weapons in the tent, daggers and dirks, a bow and a quiver of arrows, a bronze-headed spear lying beside that big black . . .

. . . horn.

Jon sucked in his breath.

A warhorn, a bloody great warhorn.
A Storm of Swords, Jon X

Horn of Joramun by David Lightbringer

 

🧵 Mance – "Yes. The Horn of Winter, that Joramun once blew to wake giants from the earth.”

🐺 Jon – "Ygritte said you never found the horn."

Dialogue from A Storm of Swords, Jon X

It's true, Ygritte did say that.

♨️ Ygritte – 😢 "I almost fell. Twice. Thrice. The Wall was trying t' shake me off, I could feel it." 
🐺 Jon – "The worst is behind us. Don't be frightened." 
♨️ Ygritte – 😠 “I wasn't frightened. You know nothing, Jon Snow."
🐺 Jon – "Why are you crying, then?"
♨️ Ygritte – 😤 "Not for fear! I'm crying because we never found the Horn of Winter. We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!”
Dialogue from A Storm of Swords, Jon IV

According to Ygritte, they searched about fifty graves, and didn't find the Horn of Winter. But apparently they did release the Others 😱

A Bloody Sin

Mance Rayder showed Jon a big black horn and claimed it was the legendary Horn of Winter, but Ygritte told Jon they had not found the Horn of Winter.

The topic comes up again when Tormund and Jon are overseeing the free folks’ passage through the Wall:

🎅🏻 Tormund – "You need a bigger gate. Too bloody slow this way. Like sucking the Milkwater through a reed. Har. Would that I had the Horn of Joramun. I'd give it a nice toot and we'd climb through the rubble."
🐺 Jon – "Melisandre burned the Horn of Joramun."
🎅🏻 Tormund – "Did she?" (hoots, slaps thigh) "She burned that fine big horn, aye. A bloody sin, I call it. A thousand years old, that was. We found it in a giant's grave, and no man o' us had ever seen a horn so big. That must have been why Mance got the notion to tell you it were Joramun's. He wanted you crows to think he had it in his power to blow your bloody Wall down about your knees. But we never found the true horn, not for all our digging. If we had, every kneeler in your Seven Kingdoms would have chunks o' ice to cool his wine all summer."
Dialogue from A Dance With Dragons, Jon XII

Jon turned in his saddle, frowning. And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. That huge horn with its bands of old gold, incised with ancient runes … had Mance Rayder lied to him, or was Tormund lying now? If Mance's horn was just a feint, where is the true horn?
A Dance With Dragons, Jon XII

Jon hasn't quite figured it out, but as soon as the topic came up, Tormund gave up all the details of Mance’s horn deception. Once again, Tormund just blurts out the truth. There is no need to keep it secret now, but there was no reason to volunteer that information either.

This is most likely why Mance left Tormund outside the tent when he showed Jon the horn; he didn't want the loud-mouth spoiling his ruse.

Honest to a Fault 

Mance tries to deceive Jon to test his honesty. Jon lies to protect the Night’s Watch. There is a lot of deception happening, but Tormund is compulsively revelatory. He spoiled Mance’s chance to test Jon’s honesty, and it seems like he would have given away the horn hoax too, if Mance hadn't left him outside.

Mance and Jon may be tricksy hobbitses, but Tormund tells the truth.

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.