Bran Stark meets the Three-Eyed Crow

After a harrowing journey through the haunted forest, Bran Stark, accompanied by Meera and Jojen Reed, Hodor, and the mysterious ranger Coldhands, arrives at a cave hidden beneath a hollow hill. The cave is warded against the wights that pursue them, and within its depths Bran finally meets the being who has haunted his dreams: the Three-Eyed Crow.

Identity and Revelation

The Three-Eyed Crow is revealed to be a man named Brynden, a former man of the Night's Watch who has become the last greenseer. His body is withered and skeletal, fused with the roots of a weirwood tree that grows through and around him. He tells Bran, "I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you… except in dreams." He has watched Bran since his birth, saw his first step, heard his first word, and was watching when Bran fell from the tower at Winterfell. The cave is also home to the children of the forest, including a small woman named Leaf, who explains that their kind are "those who sing the song of earth."

The Promise of Flight

When Bran asks if the Three-Eyed Crow can fix his broken legs, the answer is a firm no. "That is beyond my powers," the pale lord says. But he offers a different gift: "You will never walk again, Bran… but you will fly." This promise echoes the crow's earlier cryptic words in Bran's dreams and signals that Bran's true destiny lies not in physical mobility but in the supernatural abilities of a greenseer and skinchanger.

The Beginning of Training

Under the hill, Bran begins his training. He learns to slip into the skin of Summer, his direwolf, with increasing ease, and to enter the minds of ravens, flying through the caverns. The Three-Eyed Crow explains that the singers (children of the forest) carved eyes into the weirwoods to awaken them, and that through these trees Bran can see across vast distances and even into the past. Leaf brings him a paste of weirwood seeds, which he eats to awaken his gifts and "wed" him to the trees.

Glimpses of the Past

After consuming the paste, Bran has a vision of Winterfell's godswood, where he sees his father, Eddard Stark, cleaning the greatsword Ice. Though he tries to speak, his father cannot hear him; the Three-Eyed Crow explains that the past remains the past and cannot be changed. Bran then sees a rapid succession of visions: a woman heavy with child begging for a son who would avenge her, a brown-haired girl kissing a young knight, a dark-eyed youth cutting branches from the weirwood to make arrows, and finally a bearded man forced to his knees before the heart tree while a white-haired woman slits his throat with a bronze sickle. Bran can taste the blood, a visceral sign of his deepening connection to the weirwood's memory.

Thematic Significance

Bran's meeting with the Three-Eyed Crow represents the fulfillment of a quest that has driven him since the fall of Winterfell. It transforms him from a passive, broken boy into an active participant in the ancient magic of the North. The encounter also establishes the central tension of his new existence: the immense power of the greenseer comes at the cost of his humanity, as he is increasingly drawn into the timeless, non-human perspective of the trees. The Three-Eyed Crow's own fused, corpse-like body serves as a warning of what Bran may become.