So in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, Westeros is divided by a big icy Wall. To
its south are the Seven Kingdoms, with all its cities and castles and ladies and lords
and almost all the main characters in the series. North of the Wall is a vast frozen
wilderness , populated by people known as the wildlings. The wildlings are in trouble,
because recently, they’ve been under attack from the mysterious Others, or white walkers.
Mance Rayder, the “King-beyond-the-Wall” who unites and leads the wildlings, tries
to fight the white walkers at first, but he can’t stand against them, so instead
he decides to lead his people to safety south of the Wall. But the Night’s Watch who
man the Wall see the wildlings as enemies, as dangerous savages, and they don’t want
to let them through. So Mance, determined to get his people south, prepares to do something
drastic. He searches for an ancient artefact said to have the “power” to “break”
the Wall – something called Joramun’s Horn, or the Horn of Winter.
Mance searches for the Horn in the Frostfangs, and “all over the valley of the Milkwater”,
digging up “half a hundred graves” of ancient “kings and heroes”. Ygritte tells
Jon that for all their searching, the wildlings never find the Horn. But later in Storm,
Mance says that Ygritte lied, and that he did find it – he shows Jon a “great warhorn”,
eight feet long, banded in gold, and engraved with runes. Mance says that unless the Watch
lets the wildlings through the Wall, he’ll blow the horn and destroy the Wall, even
though he knows that if the Wall falls, there’ll be nothing to stop the Others. In the end
Stannis captures Mance and Melisandre burns the horn, and Jon lets many of the wildlings
through the Wall anyway. So it looks like the story of the Horn is cut short. But later,
Tormund tells Jon that Mance’s horn wasn’t actually the real Horn, that it was as an
empty threat. So Jon asks, “If Mance’s horn was just a feint, where is the true horn?”
We might also ask what the Horn actually does, exactly, and who made it, and why. We’re
never directly given answers to these questions in the text but we can make some pretty good
guesses. Let’s start at the beginning – with Joramun.
According to legend, Joramun was “The first King-Beyond-the-Wall”, the first person
to unite and lead the wildlings. He lived thousands of years ago , so we don’t really
know anything about him for certain, but we hear a few different stories. Jeor Mormont
implies that Joramun tried to invade the south, but was defeated, either by the Wall, or by
the Starks of Winterfell. In another story, Joramun apparently fought alongside the Starks
in the overthrow of the Night’s King , a Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch who
seemed to be involved with the Others. But the main thing we’re told about Joramun
is that he “blew the Horn of Winter, and woke giants from the earth”, which apparently
means the Horn has the power to “bring down the Wall”. So these legends raise a lot
of questions – like, if blowing the Horn of Winter brings down the Wall, and Joramun
blew the Horn of Winter, why’s the Wall still standing? Was the Horn not used to its
full power, or maybe not directed at the Wall or something? And did Joramun try to invade
the south, or did he fight with the Starks, against the Night’s King, or both? Was the
Horn used in these conflicts? And most of all – what does it mean to “wake giants
from the earth”? Fans have a lot of different ideas about what
this phrase means. Like, maybe it’s literal – maybe there are giants in some kinda hibernation
under the ground and the sound of the horn will wake them and make them tear down the
Wall. Some suggest there are ice dragons frozen within the Wall, or huge weirwood trees that
could be described as giants. But there’s evidence for a different explanation in The
World of Ice and Fire, in the bit about the Breaking of the Arm of Dorne. Basically, thousands
of years ago, the first humans came to Westeros across a land bridge called the Arm of Dorne.
They started warring with the children of the forest, so to try to stop more humans
coming, the children used the magic of the old gods to break the Arm – “the old gods
stirred, and giants awoke in the earth, and all of Westeros shook and trembled. Great
cracks appeared in the earth, and hills and mountains collapsed and were swallowed up.
And then the seas came rushing in, and the Arm of Dorne was broken”, leaving “only
[the] few bare rocky islands” we see today. So George R. R. Martin uses waking giants
from the earth as a metaphor for a huge earth-shaking cataclysm – presumably, that’s what the
Horn of Winter does, and that’s how it could destroy the Wall.
This may also hint at the Horn’s origins – it sounds like the Horn uses the magic
of the children of the forest. But the physical form of a horn itself seems like something
humans would make, especially if it’s banded in metal, which we know the children didn’t
use. So maybe the Horn was made by the children of the forest and the First Men working together
– which makes sense because the Horn dates back to a time of friendship and peace between
the children and the Men. In fact, it was not long before Joramun that the children
and the Men apparently worked together to defeat the Others and build the Wall – which
raises another question – why would the children and the Men make a Horn that can
destroy the Wall just after they built the Wall? Maybe this supports the theory that
the Wall was actually built by the Others. But if the children and Men actually wanted
to destroy the Wall, why put that power into a horn, instead of just using that power and
destroying the Wall right away? Maybe the Horn was designed not to destroy the Wall,
but as a power play to show that you could bring down the Wall – kinda like nukes in
the Cold War. Being able to threaten someone with complete destruction can be more powerful
than actually destroying them. This is what Mance Rayder does in Storm, right? He doesn’t
want to use the Horn to bring down the Wall, because he knows that would make everyone
vulnerable to the Others. But he threatens to do it anyway to force the Watch to do what
he wants. Maybe that’s why the Horn was made in the first place – not so much as
a way to destroy the Wall, but as a way to project power by showing you could destroy
the Wall – it might have first been used against the Night’s King. The Night’s
King apparently took over the Night’s Watch and the Wall “with strange sorceries”
and made sacrifices to the Others . Maybe the way the wildlings and Starks defeated
him was by threatening to use the Horn – maybe Joramun sounded it at less than its full power,
enough to show he could destroy the Wall without actually doing it, in doing so, forcing the
Night’s King to stand down. That’s just a guess, there’s no solid evidence to support
this, but it does make sense for the Horn to be designed more as a threat than to actually
be used. To speculate a little more we also guess at
where the Horn was kept after the business with Joramun and the Night’s King. Maybe
the Horn of Winter was held by the Stark “Kings of Winter” at Winterfell. Maybe that’s
why it’s said that “there must always be a Stark in Winterfell” – the Starks
historically guarded the Horn. Maybe the Horn was kept in the Winterfell crypts – there
are lots of hints that there’s something important down there – both Bran and Jon
have many dreams about the crypts. Also, Mance Rayder has shown a suspicious interest
in the crypts – he actually infiltrates Winterfell, twice – in the first book , and
in Dance – Mance is still alive in the books. In Dance, Mance gets into Winterfell and tries
to find out from Theon where the crypts are. Is it possible that Mance believes that
the Horn of Winter is in the Winterfell crypts? Is that why he keeps sneaking into Winterfell?
Maybe we’ll find out in the next book. But it’s also possible that the Horn’s
not in Winterfell anymore, if it ever was, because it seems likely that the Horn of Winter
is now in the possession of Samwell Tarly. In Clash, Jon finds a cache of dragonglass
weapons wrapped in a Night’s Watch cloak and buried on the Fist of the First Men, possibly
by Benjen or Coldhands for Bloodraven. Along with the dragonglass daggers and arrowheads
is an “old warhorn, made from an auroch’s horn and banded in bronze”. It’s cracked
and chipped and Jon can’t get any sound from it, so he gives it to Sam, who “like[s]
old things, even worthless old things”. Basically this horn doesn’t seem to be important,
but Sam hangs onto it and the books keep subtly reminding us that he still has it – four
times in two books, the horn is offhandedly mentioned, often right after Jon chapters
where he mentions the Horn of Winter. Why would this horn keep coming up unless it was
important? It looks like George Martin is setting us up to reveal that Sam’s “worthless”
old horn is actually the legendary Horn of Winter.
Which could lead to some pretty crazy shit happening – like, what would happen if Sam
repairs and blows the Horn while he’s in Oldtown? Would the Wall suddenly fall, hundreds
of miles away? Or if the Horn, is, like, directional, would Oldtown collapse around Sam? It’s
also worth considering that magic in this story, especially the magic of the old gods,
often has a cost of blood or human life. When someone uses another magic horn in the story,
Dragonbinder, his lips blister and his chest bleeds and he ends up dead. Whoever uses
Joramun’s Horn might suffer something similar. There is an interesting symmetry between the
fiery Dragonbinder and the icy Horn of Winter… Also there’s apparently “a magic horn”
that summons “krakens from the deep” which sounds pretty sick. But anyway.
We could speculate all day about Joramun’s Horn, but here’re our best guesses based
on what we know now. According to legend, it’s an ancient horn with the power to bring
down the Wall. It was probably originally made by the children of the forest and the
First Men, maybe not because they wanted to destroy the Wall, but because they wanted
to be able to threaten to destroy it, like a mutally assured destruction type deal. After
Joramun and the Night’s King, the Horn may have been kept by the Starks in the Winterfell
crypts, though now it seems likely that the horn is held by Samwell Tarly in the Citadel,
which could have hilarious and/or disastrous consequences. We’ll hopefully learn much
more about the Horn in the next book, it’s apparently on the cover, after all. Until
then, we’ll keep on guessing. Thanks for watching. For more Game of Thrones
discussion and analysis, you might like to check out the Song of Ice and Fire subreddit
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