| Note: The title of this article is conjecture and may be subject to change. |
A cave near Greyguard is found beyond the Wall.
Layout
The cave is found beneath a hill in the haunted forest[1] between Stonedoor and Greyguard, two abandoned castles of the Night's Watch along the Wall.[1] Facing north, the narrow mouth of the cave is concealed behind a soldier pine. A passage then descends twenty feet into a large cavern the size of the Great Hall of Winterfell. The cavern has a shallow pool, and a sinkhole in the center of the chamber leads to a possibly-larger cavern below. An underground stream can be heard.[1]
Numerous columns and stalactites can be found in a dim back room with walls of rose and white flowstone. A dark hole under an outthrust of wet stone leads to a grotto, in which a little waterfall fills a wide pool of pale green water. Another passage from the grotto leads deeper into the cave system.[1]
Recent Events
A Storm of Swords
Jon Snow, feigning desertion from the Night's Watch, accompanies free folk raiders led by Styr, Magnar of Thenn, and Jarl as they head through the haunted forest toward the Wall. The company stays overnight in the cavern, with their horses hobbled by the shallow pool.[1]
Climbing the hill, Jon tells Ghost to head to Castle Black, as the direwolf would not be able to climb the Wall with them. One of the Thenns brings Jon into the cave, where he is questioned by Styr and Jarl about patrols of the Watch along the Wall.[1]
Ygritte, Jon's lover, hears water and explores the grotto and nearby passage. When Jon finds her in the grotto, Ygritte tells him that all of the caves in the hilly region connect, and she tells the story of Gendel becoming lost in Gorne's Way. The pair have sex in the grotto before returning to the other wildlings in the cavern.[1]
The raiding party climbs the Wall the next day,[2] and they descend at Greyguard.[3] Jon escapes the wildlings at Queenscrown,[3] and Ygritte is killed in Styr's attack on Castle Black.[4]
Quotes
Within the rock, the passage descended twenty feet before it opened out onto a space as large as Winterfell's Great Hall. Cookfires burned amongst the columns, their smoke rising to blacken the stony ceiling. The horses had been hobbled along one wall, beside a shallow pool. A sinkhole in the center of the floor opened on what might have been an even greater cavern below, though the darkness made it hard to tell. Jon could hear the soft rushing sound of an underground stream somewhere below as well.[1]
—thoughts of Jon Snow
Ygritte: D'you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave. I told you so.
Jon: We'll go back to the cave. You're not going to die, Ygritte. You're not.
Ygritte: Oh. You know nothing, Jon Snow.[4]
Chapters that take place at the cave
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 26, Jon III.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 30, Jon IV.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 41, Jon V.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 55, Jon VII.