Dawn Age: Difference between revisions

Very little is known about Westeros before the arrival of the First Men. The Children of the Forest lived here alongside the giants and the [[Weirwood|weirwoods]], worshipping the [[Old Gods|nameless gods]]. Though strange structures built during this period made of slick black stone, such as the Seastone Chair in the [[Iron Islands]] or the foundations of [[Oldtown]], speak of another and even more mysterious race men call the [[Deep Ones]]<ref name="History7">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History''. London: HarperVoyager. p.7.</ref>. Westeros itself was far more densely forested, with the Children living in a vast primeval wood that once stretched from Cape Kraken along the [[the North#The Stony Shore|Stony Shore]] to the [[The Stormlands#The Cape of Wrath|Rainwood]]<ref name="Stormlands222">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Stormlands: The Coming of the First Men''. London: HarperVoyager. p.222.</ref>. Neither the Children nor the Giants had knowledge of metal or stoneworking, and lived solely on what nature could provide them bar the substance known as dragonglass, or obsidian.

The First Men arrived in Westeros approximately seven thousand years before the [[Coming of the Andals]], crossing the Arm of Dorne and gradually spreading through the new continent, bringing the [[First Gods]], horses, cattle, sheep, and bronze<ref name="FirstMen8">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Coming of the First Men''. London: HarperVoyager. p.8.</ref>. Why they left is unknown. But the First Men came in the thousands from the very start, settling [[Dorne]] quickly, and then moving northwards to the [[The Reach|Reach]]; the [[the Stormlands|Stormlands]]; the [[Mountain and Vale|Vale]]; the [[The Riverlands|Riverlands]]; the [[Iron Islands]] and finally the [[the North|North]] over only mere decades. Everywhere but in Dorne and the Iron Islands<ref name="IronIslands175>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands''. London: HarperVoyager. p.175.</ref>, they encountered the Children and the Giants. Initially the First Men had cordial relations with the Children, but as they erected forts, began farms, and built houses, felling the Children's sacred weirwoods to do so, the Children attacked and war broke out between them<ref name="FirstMen8">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Coming of the First Men''. London: HarperVoyager. p.8.</ref>.  

For the first few centuries, the First Men and the Children warred with each other. The former chopped swathes of weirwoods, slaughtered the Children, and claimed vast tracts of land throughout Westeros. The latter turned to their magics and their [[Greenseers]] to call on beasts to aid them, but as the conflict ground on, the Children realised they were slowly losing. As a last ditch effort their greenseers gathered and with their combined magics broke the Arm of Dorne, turned the [[The North#The Neck|Neck]] into a swamp<ref>Dave Hill. (2014). ''The North'' in ''Histories & Lore: Season 3''. Home Box Office.</ref>, and crumbled away the Iron Islands to a shadow of what it once was<ref name="FirstMen8">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Coming of the First Men''. London: HarperVoyager. p.8.</ref>.

Despite the near-apocalyptic disasters that befell the First Men, they were already too entrenched in Westeros to leave, and the war continued over many more generations for centuries, perhaps millennia. Eventually, the mightiest greenseers of the Children came to the realisation that this was a war they could not win, and made peace with the kings of the First Men, who had grown weary of the fruitless conflict. Both sides met on an island at the centre of the [[The Riverlands#The Rivers and the Hills|God's Eye]], a large lake in the Riverlands, and there agreed to the [[The Pact|Pact]]. The Children would retreat to the deep forests, giving up all other lands to the First Men, and no more weirwoods would be cut down<ref name="FirstMen8">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Coming of the First Men''. London: HarperVoyager. p.8.</ref>. The Children, to seal the Pact in the eyes of the gods, carved a face into every weirwood tree on the island, and it was named the [[Isle of Faces]] thereafter<ref>Bryan Cogman. (2012). ''The Children of the Forest, the First Men, and the Andals'' in ''Histories & Lore: Season 1''. Home Box Office.</ref>.

== Trivia ==

* In the [[The North#The Barrowlands and the Rills|Barrowlands]], the Barrow Kings of [[House Dustin]] claim descent to the 'First King' who led the First Men over the Arm of Dorne and ruled all of them, and was allegedly buried in the Great Barrow at House Dustin's seat of Barrowton<ref name="North137">George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The North: The Kings of Winter''. London: HarperVoyager. p.137.</ref>.

* The [[Drowned God|Drowned priests]] speak that the Ironborn are not descended from the First Men, instead they emerged from the seas and the halls of the Drowned God [[Deep Ones|shaped in his image]] before the First Men ever crossed the Arm of Dorne<ref name="IronIslands175>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands''. London: HarperVoyager. p.175.</ref>. And it is known that the Ironborn never spoke the Old Tongue or used the runes of the First Men themselves<ref name="IronIslands177>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands''. London: HarperVoyager. p.177.</ref>.

* [[Casterly Rock]] was erected in the last centuries of the Dawn Age<ref name="Westerlands195>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Westerlands''. London: HarperVoyager. p.195.</ref>.

* [[Durran Godsgrief]] was one of the leaders of the First Men who led his followers to the Stormlands. And he may have been present at the sealing of the [[The Pact|Pact]]<ref>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - The Stormlands: The Coming of the First Men''. London: HarperVoyager. pp.223-4.</ref>.

* Dorne is the oldest settled region in Westeros, as it was the very first land the First Men step foot on from the Arm of Dorne<ref name="Dorne237>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: The Breaking''. London: HarperVoyager. p.237.</ref>.

* The Hammer of the Waters, the breaking of the Arm of Dorne, that cut off the First Men already in Westeros from Essos was too late to turn the tide of war between the First Men and the Children of the Forest, who were outnumbered three-to-one after just a few centuries<ref name="Dorne237>George R.R. Martin. (2014). ''The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: The Breaking''. London: HarperVoyager. p.237.</ref>.