Some celebrated children of Garth Greenhand
JOHN THE OAK, the First Knight, who brought chivalry to Westeros (a huge man, all agree, eight feet tall in some tales, ten or twelve feet tall in others, sired by Garth Greenhand on a giantess). His own descendants became the Oakhearts of Old Oak.
GILBERT OF THE VINES, who taught the men of the Arbor to make sweet wine from the grapes that grew so fat and lush across their island, and who founded House Redwyne.
FLORYS THE FOX, the cleverest of Garth’s children, who kept three husbands, each ignorant of the existence of the others. (From their sons sprang House Florent, House Ball, and House Peake).
MARIS THE MAID, the Most Fair, whose beauty was so renowned that fifty lords vied for her hand at the first tourney ever to be held in Westeros. (The victor was the Grey Giant, Argoth Stone-Skin, but Maris wed King Uthor of the High Tower before he could claim her, and Argoth spent the rest of his days raging outside the walls of Oldtown, roaring for his bride.)
FOSS THE ARCHER, renowned for shooting apples off the head of any maid who took his fancy, from whom both the red apple and green apple Fossoways trace their descent.
BRANDON OF THE BLOODY BLADE, who drove the giants from the Reach and warred against the children of the forest, slaying so many at Blue Lake that it has been known as Red Lake ever since.
OWEN OAKENSHIELD, who conquered the Shield Islands, driving the selkies and merlings back into the sea.
HARLON THE HUNTER and HERNDON OF THE HORN, twin brothers who built their castle atop Horn Hill and took to wife the beautiful woods witch who dwelled there, sharing her favors for a hundred years (for the brothers did not age so long as they embraced her whenever the moon was full).
Garth Greenhand. (illustration credit 131)
BORS THE BREAKER, who gained the strength of twenty men by drinking only bull’s blood, and founded House Bulwer of Blackcrown. (Some tales claim Bors drank so much bull’s blood he grew a pair of shiny black horns.)
ROSE OF RED LAKE, a skinchanger, able to transform into a crane at will—a power some say still manifests from time to time in the women of House Crane, her descendants.
ELLYN EVER SWEET, the girl who loved honey so much she sought out the King of the Bees in his vast mountain hive and made a pact with him, to care for his children and his children’s children for all time. She was the first beekeeper, and the mother to House Beesbury.
ROWAN GOLD-TREE, who was so bereft when her lover left her for a rich rival that she wrapped an apple in her golden hair, planted it upon a hill, and grew a tree whose bark and leaves and fruit were gleaming yellow gold, and to whose daughters the Rowans of Goldengrove trace their roots.
Garth Greenhand brought the gift of fertility with him. Nor was it only the earth that he made fecund, for the legends tell us that he could make barren women fruitful with a touch—even crones whose moon blood no longer flowed. Maidens ripened in his presence, mothers brought forth twins or even triplets when he blessed them, young girls flowered at his smile. Lords and common men alike offered up their virgin daughters to him wherever he went, that their crops might ripen and their trees grow heavy with fruit. There was never a maid that he deflowered who did not deliver a strong son or fair daughter nine moons later, or so the stories say.
These legends, though cherished by the smallfolk, are largely discounted by both the maesters of the Citadel and the septons of the Faith, who share the view that Garth Greenhand was a man, not a god. A hunter or war chief, most like, or perhaps a petty king, he might well have been the first lord of the First Men to lead his followers across the Arm of Dorne (as yet unbroken) and into the wilderness of Westeros, where only the elder races had previously trod.
God or man, Garth Greenhand fathered many children in this new land; on this all the tales agree. Many of those offspring grew to be heroes, kings, and great lords in their own right, founding mighty houses that endured for thousands of years.
Of all these, the greatest was his firstborn, Garth the Gardener, who made his home on the hill atop the Mander that in time became known as Highgarden, and wore a crown of flowers and vines. All of Garth Greenhand’s other children did the Gardener homage as the rightful king of all men, everywhere. From his loins sprang House Gardener, whose kings ruled the Reach beneath the banner of a green hand for many thousands of years, until Aegon the Dragon and his sisters came to Westeros.
The list is long, and many are the legends, for there is scarce a noble house in all the Reach that does not boast of descent from one of Garth Greenhand’s countless children. Even the heroes of other lands and kingdoms are sometimes numbered amongst the offspring of the Greenhand. Brandon the Builder was descended from Garth by way of Brandon of the Bloody Blade, these tales would have us believe, whilst Lann the Clever was a bastard born to Florys the Fox in some tales or Rowan Gold-Tree in others. However, Lann the Clever’s descent from Garth Greenhand is a tale told in the Reach. In the westerlands, it is more oft said that Lann cozened Garth Greenhand himself by posing as one of his sons (Garth had so many that ofttimes he grew confused), thus making off with part of the inheritance that rightly belonged to Garth’s true children.
That Garth Greenhand had many children cannot be denied, given how many in the Reach claim descent from him. But that all other lordly houses of Westeros were similarly descended seems most unlikely.
THE GARDENER KINGS
The history of the Reach in the days of the First Men is not unlike that of the other realms of Westeros. The bounty of these green and fertile lands did not make men more peaceful, nor less grasping. Here too the First Men strove against the children of the forest, rooting them out from their sacred groves and hollow hills, hewing down their weirwoods with great bronze axes. Here too kingdoms rose and fell and were forgotten, as petty kings and proud lords contended with one another for land and gold and glory, whilst towns burned and women wailed and sword rang against sword, century after century.
And yet there was a difference, in degree if not in kind, for almost all of the noble houses of the Reach shared a common ancestry, deriving as they did from Garth Greenhand and his many children. It was that kinship, many scholars have suggested, that gave House Gardener the primacy in the centuries that followed; no petty king could ever hope to rival the power of Highgarden, where Garth the Gardener’s descendants sat upon a living throne (the Oakenseat) that grew from an oak that Garth Greenhand himself had planted, and wore crowns of vines and flowers when at peace, and crowns of bronze thorns (later iron) when they rode to war. Others might style themselves kings, but the Gardeners were the unquestioned High Kings, and lesser monarchs did them honor, if not obeisance.
King Garth VII Gardener, the Goldenhand. (illustration credit 132)
In those centuries of trial and tumult, the Reach produced many a fearless warrior. From that day to this, the singers have celebrated the deeds of knights like Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Davos the Dragonslayer, Roland of the Horn, and the Knight Without Armor—and the legendary kings who led them, among them Garth V (Hammer of the Dornish), Gwayne I (the Gallant), Gyles I (the Woe), Gareth II (the Grim), Garth VI (the Morningstar), and Gordan I (Grey-Eyes).
Many of these monarchs shared a common foe, for during these dark and bloody centuries, seaborne reavers from the Iron Islands dominated almost all of the western shore, from Bear Island to the Arbor. With their swift longships, the ironborn were able to strike and depart before any response came. Their raiders oft came ashore at unexpected places, taking their enemies unaware. Though the ironmen seldom ventured far inland, they controlled the Sunset Sea and exacted cruel tribute from the fisherfolk along the coasts. Having established themselves upon the Shield Islands by killing all the men they found there and claiming the women as their own, the ironborn even raided up the Mander with impunity.
King Qhored, the most fearsome of these ironborn overlords, boasted that his writ ran “wherever men can smell salt water or hear the crash of waves.” He was known as Qhor
ed the Cruel in the Reach, and the kings who succeeded him went by such bynames as Hagon the Terrible and Joron Maidensbane.
It was against these men and their followers that the kings of House Gardener contended for three centuries, sometimes in alliance with the Kings of the Rock and the Lords of Oldtown, and sometimes alone. No fewer than six of the Gardener kings died in battle, amongst them Gareth the Grim and Garth the Morningstar, whilst Gyles II was taken captive, tortured, and cut into small pieces to bait his captor’s hooks. Yet the victory was at long last theirs, and each of them pushed the domains of House Gardener farther and brought more lands and lords beneath the rule of Highgarden.
That being said, many scholars still believe that the greatest of the Gardener kings were the peacemakers, not the fighters. Fewer songs are sung of them, it is true, but in the annals of history the names of Garth III (the Great), Garland II (the Bridegroom), Gwayne III (the Fat), and John II (the Tall) are writ large. Garth the Great extended the borders of his realm northward, winning Old Oak, Red Lake, and Goldengrove with pacts of friendship and mutual defense. Garland accomplished the same in the south, bringing Oldtown into his kingdom by wedding his daughter to Lymond (the Sea Lion) of House Hightower, whilst putting his own wives aside to marry Lord Lymond’s daughter. Gwayne the Fat persuaded Lord Peake and Lord Manderly to accept his judgment on their quarrel, and do fealty for their lands, without fighting a single battle. John the Tall sailed his barge up the Mander to its very headwaters, planting the banner of the green hand wherever he went and receiving homage from the lords and petty kings whose lands lined that mighty river’s banks.
Greatest of all the Gardeners was King Garth VII, the Goldenhand, a giant in both war and peace. As a boy, he turned back the Dornish when King Ferris Fowler led ten thousand men through the Wide Way (as the Prince’s Pass was then called), intent on conquest. Soon after, he turned his attention to the sea and drove the last ironmen from their strongholds on the Shield Islands. Thereafter he resettled the islands with his fiercest fighters, granting them special dispensations for the purpose of turning them into a first defense against the ironborn, should they return. This proved a great success, and to this day the men of the Four Shields pride themselves on defending the mouth of the Mander and the heart of the Reach against any and all seaborne foes.
In his last and greatest war, Garth VII faced an alliance between the Storm King and the King of the Rock, intent on carving up the Reach between them, but he defeated them both, then with cunning words sowed such discord between them that they turned on one another with great slaughter at the Battle of Three Armies. In the aftermath he married his daughters to their heirs and signed a pact with each, fixing the borders between the three kingdoms.
Yet even that paled before his greatest accomplishment: three-quarters of a century of peace. Garth Goldenhand became King of the Reach at the age of twelve and died upon the Oakenseat when he was ninety-three, still sound of wits (if frail of body). During the eighty-one years of his reign, the Reach was at war for less than ten. Generations of boys were born and grew to manhood, sired children of their own, and died without ever knowing what it was to grasp a spear and shield and march away to war.
And with this long peace came an unprecedented prosperity. The Golden Reign, as this time came to be known, was when the Reach truly flowered.
Yet all golden ages end, and so it was in the Reach. Garth Goldenhand passed from this world. A great-grandson followed him upon the Oakenseat, then gave way to his own sons.
And then the Andals came.
ANDALS IN THE REACH
The Andals came late to the Reach.
Crossing the narrow sea in longships, they landed first upon the shores of the Vale, then later all along the eastern coasts. The fleets of Oldtown and the Arbor barred them from the Redwyne Straits and the Sunset Sea. Reports of the bounty of the Reach and the wealth and power of Highgarden and its kings undoubtedly reached the ears of many an Andal warlord, but other lands and other kings lay between them.
Thus, long before the Andals reached the Mander, the kings in Highgarden knew of their coming. They observed the fighting in the Vale, the stormlands, and the riverlands from afar, taking note of all that happened. Wiser perhaps than their counterparts from other regions, they did not make the error of allying with the Andals against local rivals. Gwayne IV (the Gods-fearing) sent his warriors searching out the children of the forest, in the hopes that the greenseers and their magic could halt the invaders. Mern II (the Mason) built a new curtain wall about Highgarden and commanded his lords bannermen to see to their own defenses. Mern III (the Madling) showered gold and honors on a woods witch who claimed that she could raise armies of the dead to throw the Andals back. Lord Redwyne built more ships, and Lord Hightower strengthened the walls of Oldtown.
Yet the great battles most of them had anticipated never came to pass. By the time the conquerors were done conquering the eastern shores, generations had passed and the Andals had raised up twoscore petty kings of their own, many of them at odds with one another. And in Highgarden, the Three Sage Kings followed one another upon the Oakenseat.
Garth IX Gardener, his son Merle I (the Meek), and his grandson Gwayne V were very different men, but they shared a common policy toward the Andals, one based on accord and assimilation rather than armed resistance. Garth IX brought a septon to his court and made him part of his councils, and built the first sept at Highgarden, though he himself continued to worship in the castle godswood. His son Merle I formally espoused the Faith, however, and helped fund the construction of septs, septries, and motherhouses all over the Reach. Gwayne V was the first Gardener born into the Faith, and the first to be made a knight by solemn rite and vigil. (Many of his noble forebears have had posthumous knighthood conveyed on them by singers and storytellers, but true knighthood only came to Westeros with the Andals).
Both Merle I and Gwayne V took Andal maidens as their wives, as a means of binding their brides’ fathers to the realm. All three kings took Andals into their service as household knights and retainers. Amongst those so honored was an Andal knight named Ser Alester Tyrell, whose prowess at arms was such that he was made the king’s champion and sworn shield under Gwayne V. Ser Alester’s descendants in time became the hereditary stewards of Highgarden under the Gardeners.
The Three Sage Kings also found lands and lordships for the more powerful of the Andal kings descending on the Reach, in return for pledges of fealty. The Gardeners sought after Andal craftsmen as well and encouraged their lords bannermen to do the same. Blacksmiths and stonemasons in particular were handsomely rewarded. The former taught the First Men to arm and armor themselves in iron in place of bronze; the latter helped them strengthen the defenses of their castles and holdfasts.
And though some of these new-made lords foreswore their vows in later years, most did not. Rather, they joined with their liege lords to put down such rebels and defended the Reach against those Andal kings and warbands who came later. “When a wolf descends upon your flocks, all you gain by killing him is a short respite, for other wolves will come,” King Garth IX said famously. “If instead you feed the wolf and tame him and turn his pups into your guard dogs, they will protect the flocks when the pack comes ravening.” King Gwayne V said it more succinctly. “They gave us seven gods, we gave them dirt and daughters, and our sons and grandsons shall be as brothers.”
Many noble houses of the Reach trace their ancestry back to Andal adventurers given lands and wives by Garth IX, Merle I, and Gwayne V, amongst them the Ormes, Parrens, Gracefords, Cuys, Roxtons, Ufferings, Leygoods, and Varners. As the centuries passed, the sons and daughters of these houses intermarried so freely with those descended from the First Men that it became impossible to tell them apart. Seldom has a conquest been achieved with less bloodshed.
The centuries that followed the Andal conquest were to prove less peaceful. The Gardeners who succeeded to the Oakenseat included strong men and weak, clever men and fools, and o
nce even a woman, but few had the wisdom and cunning of the Three Sage Kings, so the golden peace of Garth Goldenhand did not come again. In that long epoch between the assimilation of the Andals and the coming of the dragons, the Kings of the Reach warred constantly with their neighbors in a perpetual struggle for land, power, and glory. The Kings of the Rock, the Storm Kings, the many quarrelsome kings of Dorne, and the Kings of the Rivers and Hills could all be counted amongst their foes (and ofttimes amongst their allies as well.)
The Oakenseat. (illustration credit 133)
Highgarden reached the apex of its power under King Gyles III Gardener, who led a glittering host of armored knights into the stormlands, smashed the armies of the aged Storm King, and conquered all the lands north of the rainwood save for Storm’s End itself, which he besieged without result for two years. Gyles might well have completed his conquest had not the King of the Rock swept down upon the Reach in his absence, forcing him to lift his siege and hurry home to deal with the westermen. The broader war that followed involved three Dornish kings and two from the riverlands, and ended with Gyles III dead of a bloody flux and the borders between the realms restored to more or less where they had been before the bloodletting began.
The nadir of Gardener power came during the long reign of King Garth X, called Garth Greybeard, who succeeded to the crown at the age of seven and died at ninety-six—a reign even longer than that of his famous forebear Garth Goldenhand. Though vigorous in his youth, Garth X was a vain and frivolous king who surrounded himself with fools and flatterers. Neither wise nor clever, his wits abandoned him entirely in old age, and during the long years of his senility, he became the tool of first one faction, then another as those around him vied for wealth and power. His Grace had sired no sons, but Lord Peake had married one of his daughters, Lord Manderly another, and each was determined that his wife should succeed. The rivalry between them was marked by betrayal, conspiracy, and murder, finally escalating into open war. Others lords joined in on both sides.
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