The Legend of Bael the Bard. This story is told by Ygritte early on in the books and has great significance for many aspects of ASOIAF. 1) Mance Rayder takes inspiration from the story when infiltrating Winterfell, twice. He takes the name Abel when he goes to free Arya in ADWD and poses as a Bard. 2)Lyannas abduction is mirrored in the Legend. Rhaegar playing the bard and the crown of blue winter roses he gives her at the tourney is all that is left of her when she is taken away. 3)The part about Kinslaying, even when you are not aware of it, reflects on all kinslaying in the story. ( possibly including Theon). 4) The importance of the Blue winter rose and the tale connected to it ...is shown in Danys vision of a blue winter rose growing on a wall of ice. Jon is symbolized by the rose and the last line of his final chapter in ADWD also talks about the cold creeping in. 5) The Stark line through the male heirs ended once, and possibly will again if R+L=J. As in the legend, the line was continued through the female heir, being Lyanna in the current case. If Jon is named as Robbs (only) heir that is. 6) There could be something connected to the death of Ashara Dayne ( if she is dead)...in the way she threw herself from a tower in grief. I dont know how the death of Arthur Dayne could be a form of kinslaying...but its worth a thought. ................................. Here is the story of Bael the Bard, as told by Ygritte; Bael was the King-beyond-the-Wall long ago and said he could outwit any man in the realm. The Stark in Winterfell wanted Bael’s head, but never could take him, and the taste o’ failure galled him. One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak. When word o’ that got back, Bael vowed to teach the lord a lesson. So he scaled the Wall, skipped down the kingsroad, and walked into Winterfell one winter’s night with harp in hand, naming himself Sygerrik of Skagos. Sygerrik means ‘deceiver’ in the Old Tongue, that the First Men spoke, and the giants still speak.” North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark’s own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he’d made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. ‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.’” Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o’ the winter roses be plucked for the singer’s payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished . . . and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain.” Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o’ Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o’ Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast.They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says … though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what’s certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he’d plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. The song ends when they find the babe, but there is a darker end to the story. Thirty years later, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it was young Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford . . . and killed him, for Bael would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword. But the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael’s head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. Her son did not long outlive her. One o’ his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak. -Jon, ACOK ................................ Image by HallMarcus
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:00:00 +0000
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