The Acorn Water is a small river near Winterfell in the north. There is a mill located on it.[1]
Recent events
A Clash of Kings
After Ser Rodrik Cassel captures "Reek", his party stops at the mill by the Acorn Water for a while before continuing to Winterfell. The miller's wife sells them hay for their horses, and Ser Rodrik speaks with her sons.[1]
When Theon Greyjoy leads ironborn raiders to capture Winterfell, Bran and Rickon Stark become his prisoners and hostages. '"Reek", freed from Winterfell's dungeons, swears himself to Theon.[2] Later, Bran and Rickon apparently escape Winterfell. Theon gathers a search party, including Reek, Maester Luwin, and the kennelmaster Farlen and his dogs, but fails to track them down in the wolfswood. However, Reek tells Theon he has a feeling that the Stark boys are hiding at the mill, and secretly presents Theon with the boys' fine clothing he had brought along in a bag. Theon sends the rest of the search party back to Winterfell, except for Reek and three ironborn, Aggar, Gelmarr, and Gynir.[1]
At the mill, Reek kills the miller's two sons, and when their mother begs Theon for mercy, Gelmarr cuts her down with one blow of his axe. The dead children are decapitated and their heads skinned and dipped in tar by Reek, and Theon dresses their bodies in the Stark children's finery. Theon returns to Winterfell and presents the heads and headless bodies as Bran and Rickon. The people of Winterfell are shocked and horrified to see this, and Farlen attempts to attack Theon until he is beaten senseless. Maester Luwin begs to sew their heads back on and bury the bodies in the crypt of Winterfell, but Theon forbids it. Instead, he mounts their heads on the castle walls, and burns the bodies and clothing to bones and ashes.[3]
When the three ironborn who had gone to the mill with Theon and Reek die mysteriously in the following days, Theon blames Farlen and executes him. However, it was actually Reek who, with Theon's approval, killed Aggar, Gelmarr, and Gynir, to secure the secret of the "Stark boys'" deaths. Afterwards, Theon has a nightmare of dressing the dead bodies at the mill.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 50, Theon IV.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 46, Bran VI.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 56, Theon V.