The greenseers

The greenseers were the wise men and women of the children of the forest, the original inhabitants of Westeros. In the Dawn Age, before the coming of the First Men, the children lived in the depths of the woods, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood, yet quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone—the old gods whose names are secret—and their wise men were called greenseers.

Powers and Practices

The greenseers possessed a deep, primal magic rooted in the land itself. They carved strange faces into the weirwood trees, the pale-barked, red-leaved trees that served as their eyes and ears. These carved faces kept watch over the woods, allowing the greenseers to see through them across vast distances. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm of Dorne during the wars with the First Men. This cataclysmic act, though it failed to close the door entirely, demonstrated the terrifying power they could command. The weirwood groves were their sacred places, and the Isle of Faces in the great lake called Gods Eye became the site of the Pact that ended the wars, where every tree on the island was given a face so the gods might bear witness.

The Pact and the Decline

After thousands of years of war between the children and the First Men, the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of the Isle of Faces. There they forged the Pact: the First Men were given the coastlands, high plains, bright meadows, mountains, and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children's, and no more weirwoods were to be cut anywhere in the realm. The sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces. The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men put aside the gods they had brought with them and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. But the children's age was ending. When the Andals crossed the narrow sea with steel and fire and the seven-pointed star, they burned out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, and slaughtered the children wherever they found them. The children fled north, beyond the Wall, where the old gods still hold sway.

Legacy and the Return of the Greenseer

Though the children of the forest are all gone from the lands south of the Wall, their legacy endures. The weirwoods that remain—especially the heart trees in the godswoods of the great houses—still carry the carved faces, and the old gods are still worshipped in the north. The greenseers' power to see through the trees and to dream true dreams has not entirely vanished. Bran Stark, the crippled son of Eddard Stark, is drawn to this ancient power. In his dreams, a three-eyed crow teaches him to fly, telling him, "Now you know why you must live." The crow shows him visions of the past, present, and future, including the Wall, his brother Jon Snow sleeping alone in a cold bed, and the heart of winter itself. Maester Luwin tells Bran that the children of the forest are dead and gone, but Osha, the wildling woman, insists that north of the Wall, things are different—that is where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races. The greenseers' prophecy of the stallion who mounts the world, spoken by the crones of the dosh khaleen to Daenerys Targaryen, echoes the same deep, ancient magic: a prince who will unite the Dothraki and ride to the ends of the earth. And Mirri Maz Duur, the maegi who learned bloodmagic in Asshai, speaks of a time when the sun will rise in the west and set in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves—a time that may never come, yet echoes the greenseers' understanding that only death can pay for life, and that the deepest magic is bound to sacrifice and the land itself.