The Winter Maid

The Winter Maid is a song performed by the bard Abel during the wedding feast of Ramsay Bolton and the false Arya Stark at Winterfell. The song is one of several that Abel plays at the request of the assembled lords and knights, providing a brief moment of musical entertainment in the tense and crowded Great Hall. Its performance is part of a sequence of songs that includes "Iron Lances" and "The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, the King Took Off His Crown," as well as the bawdy "The Bear and the Maiden Fair." The Freys and some northmen join in the singing, but the noise frightens the horses that have been brought inside the hall due to the snow, forcing the music to stop. The song's title and content, evoking a maiden of winter, resonate with the setting of a snowbound Winterfell and the forced marriage of a girl who is not the true Arya Stark, adding a layer of ironic commentary to the proceedings. The performance of "The Winter Maid" is part of Abel's role as a bard, a cover for his true purpose as Mance Rayder in disguise, who has infiltrated the castle with six spearwives to rescue the real Arya Stark. The song thus functions as a piece of the mummer's farce that surrounds the wedding, a moment of apparent normalcy that conceals a deeper plot of deception and rescue.