The Sowing of the Seeds

The Sowing of the Seeds, also known as the Red Sowing, was Prince Jacaerys Velaryon’s campaign to find riders for the unclaimed dragons on Dragonstone. It widened the war’s access to dragon power beyond the established royal family: men of varied backgrounds answered the call, and four ultimately became dragonriders. But the search was not a simple recruitment drive. Dragons did not readily accept riders, and the effort’s successes emerged from a succession of mortal risks, deaths, and unlikely acts of persistence.

Background and Purpose

For generations, House Targaryen had ruled Dragonstone and married within its own family, but its members had also fathered children with people from the island’s villages. The children of those unions, and later their descendants, were associated with the term dragonseed. Although the custom of the first night had ended, Targaryen liaisons with local women continued, leaving many people on Dragonstone who might claim some Targaryen ancestry. The tradition thus supplied a possible pool of riders outside the royal household, though descent alone could not guarantee that a dragon would accept anyone.

Prince Jacaerys turned to that possibility during the civil war. At the urging of his fool, he offered lands and riches to anyone who could master a dragon, along with knighthood for the rider. The offer also promised advancement for the rider’s children: sons would be ennobled and daughters married to lords. In return, successful candidates would fight alongside the Prince of Dragonstone against Aegon II Targaryen and his supporters. The arrangement joined a military need to an explicit promise of status, making the chance to ride a dragon a route into the ranks of the nobility as well as a way to reinforce Jacaerys’s cause.

Who Answered the Call

The candidates were not all dragonseeds. A score of the queen’s household knights volunteered, including Ser Steffon Darklyn, Lord Commander of her Queensguard. Squires, scullions, sailors, men-at-arms, mummers, and two maids also came forward. The range of occupations made the Sowing a striking departure from the customary association between dragons and the ruling dynasty: willingness to attempt the bond brought people of very different standing into the same dangerous contest.

The chroniclers differ over how to name and credit the undertaking. Munkun calls it the Sowing of the Seeds and attributes the idea to Jacaerys, rather than Mushroom; others prefer the name the Red Sowing. Mushroom himself became one of the unlikely candidates. His account describes an attempt to mount Silverwing, regarded as the most docile of the unclaimed dragons, that ended in a humiliating retreat and a near-drowning. The episode supplies a comic interruption, but it also shows how little the public promise of reward could control the risks of approaching a dragon.

The Cost of Claiming Dragons

The Sowing’s losses established the danger before its successes could be celebrated. Munkun’s True Telling records sixteen deaths, with three times as many people burned or maimed. Steffon Darklyn died trying to mount Seasmoke, and Lord Gormon Massey died while approaching Vermithor. Silver Denys, whose appearance lent support to his claim of descent from a bastard son of Maegor I Targaryen, was attacked by Sheepstealer. The resulting chaos brought the Cannibal into the encounter, and Silver Denys and his sons were killed. These outcomes made clear that the candidate’s ancestry, rank, or promise of future reward did not make a dragon safe to approach.

The older dragons were nevertheless more receptive to new riders than Dragonstone’s wild dragons. Seasmoke, Vermithor, and Silverwing had previously carried riders and were accustomed to human presence. Vermithor accepted Hugh the Hammer, a blacksmith’s bastard; Silverwing accepted Ulf the White, a pale-haired man-at-arms also known as Ulf the Sot; and Seasmoke accepted Addam of Hull, a boy of fifteen. Their very different origins underline the Sowing’s central reversal: the opportunity to claim a dragon was opened to people outside the established ruling line, but only a small number survived the attempt and proved able to do so.

Outcomes and Significance

The remaining wild dragons presented a different challenge. Sheepstealer, a brown dragon that preyed on sheep, was wary of people, as was the fish-eating Grey Ghost. The oldest and largest, the Cannibal, was known for feeding on dead dragons and attacking Dragonstone’s hatcheries; earlier would-be riders had tried to approach him without success. The Sowing therefore continued beyond the more manageable dragons, exposing later candidates to creatures less accustomed to human company.

Sheepstealer was eventually brought to accept Nettles, a sixteen-year-old known as a small brown girl, through patience rather than force. She delivered a freshly slaughtered sheep each morning until the dragon learned to expect her. Munkun records her as Nettles, while Mushroom gives a different account of her origins. Whatever her birth, she became Sheepstealer’s first and last rider. Her success differs sharply from the failed and fatal approaches: the account emphasizes repeated feeding and familiarity as the means by which the bond was established.

By the close of 129 AC, Jacaerys had achieved his objective of finding four new dragonriders, though the campaign had left widows and people bearing lasting injuries. He was preparing to fly against King’s Landing, with an attack planned for the first full moon of the new year. The Sowing thus changed the military possibilities available to his side, but did not secure an uncomplicated victory: its immediate achievement was new riders, while the wider war continued to bring dangers the prince’s plans could not contain. The name captures both sides of the episode. Seeds could grow into riders who altered the balance of power, but their cultivation demanded a human cost that the language of reward and advancement could not conceal.