Oakenshield

Oakenshield is one of the nineteen castles along the Wall, long abandoned by the Night's Watch and left to ruin. In the wake of Stannis Baratheon's victory over Mance Rayder's host, Jon Snow, the newly elected Lord Commander, faced the impossible task of defending hundreds of miles of ice with a garrison stretched thin across only three manned forts. His solution was to open the gates to the free folk—the wildlings who had been the Watch's enemies for millennia—and settle them in the empty castles, turning former foes into the realm's first line of defense. Oakenshield was the seat he chose for Tormund Giantsbane, the most powerful of the wildling chiefs, to keep him close at hand and under the Watch's eye.

Strategic Purpose and Granting to Tormund

Jon Snow announced the decision to his officers after reaching his agreement with Tormund. "Tormund will take Oakenshield as his seat, to keep him close at hand," Jon told Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyck, and the other leaders gathered atop the Wall. The choice was deliberate: Oakenshield was one of the forts that could be made habitable, and placing Tormund there rather than farther south in the Gift ensured that the wildling leader remained within reach of Castle Black. Jon had already settled other chiefs in other forts—Soren Shieldbreaker at Stonedoor, Morna White Mask at Queensgate—but Tormund was the key to holding the free folk together. "I have promised him as many men as he requires," Jon said when he announced that Tormund would lead the ranging to Hardhome while Jon himself rode south to confront Ramsay Bolton.

Settlement and Aftermath

Tormund settled his people at Oakenshield and returned to Castle Black with eighty fighting men to join Jon's planned relief expedition to Hardhome. The castle became a symbol of the new order Jon was building: a Wall garrisoned not by black brothers alone but by the very people the Watch had once fought. When Jon read Ramsay Bolton's letter—a threat that demanded the return of "the wildling princess" and "the little prince, the wildling babe"—Tormund was at his side, and the free folk of Oakenshield became part of the host that Jon raised to march south against the Bastard of Bolton.