The Bay of Crabs is a large bay that opens off the narrow sea. It lies along the southern Vale of Arryn, eastern riverlands, and northern crownlands.
Geography
[edit]The bay's northern shore includes Gulltown[1] and Wickenden in the Vale of Arryn.[2] The mouth of the Trident at Saltpans and the Quiet Isle opens into the bay. Its southern shore includes Maidenpool in the riverlands and Crackclaw Point in the crownlands.[3][2]
The waters of the Bay of Crabs shimmer blue and green[4] or blue and silver[5] in sunlight. A crooked trail on the southern shore between Saltpans and Maidenpool has sandy dunes, salt marshes, tidal pools, reeds, and pussywillows.[6] A ferry allows travel between the Quiet Isle and Saltpans.[5] Some smallfolk in the region live in homes built on rickety wooden stilts above the dunes, and they fish using leather coracles.[6] The bay has deep waters at Maidenpool.[7]
Towns and villages grow less frequent as one travels east from Maidenpool toward the forests of Crackclaw Point.[8]
Slow-moving streams flow into the Bay of Crabs, and wildlife include terns, sandpipers, frogs, and foxes.[6] Crabs scurry in the shallow waters of the Quiet Isle.[5]
History
[edit]During the coming of the Andals to the Vale, Gerold Grafton put down a rebellion of the First Men of Gulltown, with the dead thrown into the bay to feed crabs. Gulltown developed into a city under the rule of House Grafton.[1]
The Storm Kings from House Durrandon once controlled land from Cape Wrath to the Bay of Crabs, but they gradually lost much of it over the centuries.[9]
The Targaryens and Arryns fought a battle in the waters off Gulltown during Aegon's Conquest.[10]
After fleeing Maidenpool during the Dance of the Dragons, the dragonrider Nettles was last seen flying Sheepstealer in the morning mists of the Bay of Crabs.[11]
Recent Events
[edit]A Storm of Swords
[edit]Arya Stark boards the Titan's Daughter in Saltpans intending to sail to Braavos.[4]
A Feast for Crows
[edit]Brienne of Tarth spots fishermen in the bay at Maidenpool.[7] Dick Crabb escorts her from Maidenpool to the Whispers.[8] Septon Meribald later guides Brienne and her party from Maidenpool to the Quiet Isle.[6][5]
Quotes
[edit]
Saltpans, she hoped. A small castle dominated the town; no more than a holdfast, really, a single tall square keep with a bailey and a curtain wall. Most of the shops and inns and alehouses around the harbor had been plundered or burned, though some looked still inhabited. But the port was there, and eastward spread the Bay of Crabs, its waters shimmering blue and green in the sun.[4]
—thoughts of Arya Stark
There were no trees for leagues around, just sea and sky and sand. No land could have been more different from Tarth, with its mountains and waterfalls, its high meadows and shadowed vales, yet this place had its own beauty, Brienne thought. They crossed a dozen slow-flowing streams alive with frogs and crickets, watched terns floating high above the bay, heard the sandpipers calling from amongst the dunes. Once a fox crossed their path, and set Meribald's dog to barking wildly.[6]
—thoughts of Brienne Tarth
Where the river meets the bay, the currents and the tides wrestle one against the other, and many strange and wondrous things are pushed toward us, to wash up on our shores. Driftwood is the least of it. We have found silver cups and iron pots, sacks of wool and bolts of silk, rusted helms and shining swords ... aye, and rubies.[5]
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The World of Ice & Fire, The Vale.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Lands of Ice and Fire, Westeros.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Map of the South
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 74, Arya XIII.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 31, Brienne VI.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 25, Brienne V.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 14, Brienne III.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 20, Brienne IV.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, Aegon's Conquest.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, Aeong's Conquest.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Triumphant.