And they were good teeth too, better than mine. Afterward it wore his teeth around its neck on a leather thong. “ One killed my brother when I was young. “ There’s always a bear,” declared Dolorous Edd in his usual tone of gloomy resignation. “You? Seen? You’re blind as Maester Aemon. “I would have seen.”ĭywen whapped him up alongside his ear with the back of his hand. Jon wolfed it down while listening to Dywen boast of having three of Craster’s women during the Night. It is this bear that Dywen refers to in the quoted conversation below. Dywen is a bit of bear fan, and once claimed to have seen a fifteen foot huge bear North of the Wall (which Jeor Mormont dismissed as big fish talk) while in the company of Grenn. Later in the chapter, the next morning, a curious conversation follows between Dywen, Grenn and Edd about bears that Jon overhears. Edd regards Craster as an enemy of Jeor Mormont and the Night’s Watch, only posing to be a friend. And while Edd uses a figure of speech of Craster burying an axe into a bear skull, he is also saying that an enemy pretending to be a friend kills you and then buries you in secret. The “Old Bear’s skull” parallels the bear’s skull on the gate. He also suggests betrayal by Craster, turning the bear’s gifts against him. Edd certainly portrays Craster as a greedy extortionist by suggesting Craster wants all of their axes and swords. Craster has just extorted Old Bear Jeor Mormont out of wine and an axe. He tends to use his speeches to hint at something. Sure, Edd is droll and funny with his dry humor, but he is also a wise character. I wonder how long that bear’s been nailed up on that gate, and what Craster had there before we came hallooing?” “ Our enemies leave our bodies for the crows and the wolves. “Do you know the difference between a wildling who’s a friend to the Watch and one who’s not?” asked the dour squire. “Smallwood says Craster is a friend to the Watch.” If we get the wildling well and truly drunk, perhaps he’ll only cut off an ear when he tries to slay us with that axe. Does it rain in hell, I wonder? Perhaps Craster would like a nice hat instead.” We’d travel faster without them, straight to hell’s door. Why not give him all our axes, and our swords as well? I mislike the way they clank and rattle as we ride. Buried in the Old Bear’s skull, like as not. “Give the wildling an axe, why not?” pointed out Mormont’s weapon, a short-hafted battle-axe with gold scrollwork inlaid on the black steel blade. If something hanging from a pole (rather than a wall) is pointed out twice by characters in the same chapter, the author is clearly saying, “That bear skull is important! It’s not just some grizzly detail for decorative purposes to set the mood.” (see what I did there?). As for the ram’s skull: that would be Craster’s permanent scapegoat for the bear kill.Įdd points out that bear skull again, when Jon asks him for Jeor’s axe as a gift for Craster the host. I sincerely doubt that Craster held any symbolical wedding with the bear carcass. And I would think that hanging a bear’s skull high on a pole does not really count as a proper burial. It sounds like the bear has been killed recently, since flesh still clings to it. Surprise, surprise – well not really – what hangs in plain sight at the poles of Craster’s Gate? A bear skull and a ram’s. Bits of flesh still clung to the bear skull, Jon noted as he joined the line riding past. On the southwest, found an open gate flanked by a pair of animal skulls on high poles: a bear to one side, a ram to the other. Craster bears a heavy black blooded curse indeed.įor those who are unfamiliar with bear-folklore, that I will reference here and there in this essay, I urge you to read my introduction on bear-lore Chekhov Bear Skulls, Axes and Murder I will reveal to you a tale of murder and cannibalism, and a proposal on the fate of Benjen and his six rangers. The first essay focuses on the numerous hints we are given about Craster’s character. To untangle the whole bear revenge, which includes the attack on the Fist of the First Men, I have to split the concept in several essays. While Craster and his Keep only appears in two chapters, they are littered with bear references, verbally, symbolically as well as bear characters, including a bear kill and bear wedding, but also plenty of Goat or Ram-characters, who are not so different from Vargo Hoat. After the horror of Harrenhal (see Harrenhal’s Curse), Craster’s Keep may very well be the runner up of most horrific places. Another one of those famously violent and accursed places is Craster’s Keep, with Craster and his wives – who are actually his daughters – him sacrifing his sons, his extortion of Lord Commander Jeor Mormont (aka the Old Bear), the mutiny and aftermath events.
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