Greenseer Selection

Greenseer Selection is the ancient process by which the children of the forest identify and train those rare individuals born with the gift of greensight, enabling them to see through the weirwood trees and access the collective memory of the world. The greenseers are the wizards and dreamwalkers of the children, and their selection is marked by physical signs and a profound connection to the natural world, a connection that ultimately transforms them into something more tree than man.

Identity and the Gift of Greensight

According to Lord Brynden, the last greenseer, only one man in a thousand is born a skinchanger, and only one skinchanger in a thousand can be a greenseer. The children of the forest, who call themselves "those who sing the song of earth," have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed, possessing a thousand eyes, a hundred skins, and wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees.

The Role and Transformation of a Greenseer

The singers of the forest had no books, no ink, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world, became part of that godhood. The greenseers are the ones who can access this memory. Lord Brynden, who was once a man of the Night's Watch named Brynden, has lived beyond his mortal span, his body so intertwined with the roots of a weirwood throne that he appears as a ghastly statue of twisted wood, old bone, and rotted wool. Most of him has gone into the tree, and only a little strength remains in his flesh. He has a thousand eyes and one, but there is much to watch.

The Training of a New Greenseer

Bran Stark, a boy with the blood of the First Men and a powerful skinchanger, is brought to Lord Brynden to be trained as a greenseer. The process begins with eating a paste of weirwood seeds, which has a bitter taste at first but becomes almost sweet. Leaf, one of the children of the forest, explains that this paste will help awaken his gifts and wed him to the trees. After consuming the paste, Bran is instructed to slip his skin and go into the roots, following them up through the earth to the trees upon the hill. Through this, he is able to see through the eyes of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell, witnessing visions of the past, including his father, Eddard Stark, cleaning his greatsword Ice. Lord Brynden explains that time is different for a tree than for a man; for men, time is a river, but the lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. Through the weirwoods, a greenseer can gaze into the past, but cannot change it. The past remains the past, and one can learn from it but cannot alter it. The training is a long process, and Lord Brynden promises Bran that in a year, or three, or ten, he will be able to see well beyond the trees themselves.