Harlaw is an island of the Iron Islands whose lords took sides in a violent succession struggle and whose lands were later struck by a Lannister invasion. Its brief appearances connect local allegiance to the contested Seastone Chair, then show how the conflict spread into a campaign that ravaged the islands and left Harlaw’s lord among the dead.

Setting and political ties

Harlaw appears within the Iron Islands’ network of lordships. The island’s ruling family also figures in wider alliance-making: Queen Rhaenys arranged for one of the three daughters of the Evenstar of Tarth to be betrothed to House Harlaw, part of a broader effort to bind distant noble houses together through marriage.

Succession struggle

After the death of the Red Kraken, his three sisters and their husbands seized the boy Toron Greyjoy, who sat upon the Seastone Chair, and killed his mother. Their cousins, joined by the lords of Harlaw and Blacktyde, raised Toron’s half-brother Rodrik Greyjoy as a rival claimant. At the same time, men of Great Wyk rallied behind Sam Salt, who claimed descent from the black line. Harlaw’s lords thus backed one side in a three-way fight that had already continued for half a year when outside forces intervened.

Invasion and devastation

Ser Leo Costayne brought a Lannister fleet into the islands, landing troops on Pyke, Great Wyk, and Harlaw. Oakenfist had declined to join the Lannister vengeance, but Lady Johanna Lannister persuaded him to assist, possibly with the promise that she would marry him if he delivered the islands to her son. The campaign did not achieve that aim: Costayne was killed on Great Wyk, and three-quarters of his ships were captured or sunk.

The Lannister assault nevertheless exacted a heavy price across the Iron Islands. Hundreds of longships and fishing boats were burned, along with homes and villages; the wives and children of ironborn who had ravaged the Westerlands were killed wherever they were found. Lord Harlaw of Harlaw was among the slain, alongside several other island lords. The Lannisters also seized stored grain and salt fish or destroyed what they could not carry, contributing to deaths from starvation before the year ended. Harlaw’s fate is therefore recorded as part of a wider devastation: the invasion failed to secure the succession settlement its sponsor sought, yet left the islands’ people, ships, and food stores gravely diminished.