JON: As a boy looking out from my father's castle,
I thought the sun could never set on the North.
So vast did it seem.
A part of me still does.
The North is by far the largest of the Seven Kingdoms
and can fit the other six inside it.
Not that the others care.
Cold and damp, that's how the Southerners see the North.
But without the cold, a man can't appreciate the fire in his hearth.
Without the rain, a man can't appreciate the roof over his head.
Let the South have its sun, flowers and affectations.
We Northerners have home.
Mine was once Winterfell,
the ancient seat of my father's family, House Stark,
who have ruled the North since the First Men and were once the Kings of Winter.
Growing up, Lady Catelyn made sure I knew I wasn't a Stark,
no matter how much blood I shared with her trueborn children.
But where their name rules over the North, mine is the North.
Snow.
Our land stretches from the Wall down to the Neck,
a narrow land that divides us from the rest of Westeros.
Legend has it that the Children of the Forest flooded it in their war against the First Men.
If that's true, every Northman owes them a debt of gratitude.
The swamps of the Neck are as good as the Wall
for keeping out unwelcome armies.
And if the swamps don't deter you, the crannogmen men should.
Small, shy people who rarely leave those swamps
and who follow House Reed,
the gatekeepers of the North
and among the most important and loyal bannermen of House Stark.
Also a bit strange.
I heard their oath of fealty once as a child.
It's like no other lords'.
Ancient and dark, they swear by earth and water,
by bronze and iron,
and by ice and fire.
Where House Reed holds the gate to the North,
House Manderly holds the port, White Harbor,
the closest thing to a Southern city we have
governed by the closest thing to a Southern family we have.
Generations ago, the Manderlys were driven from the Reach,
but the Starks gave them their land in return for featly.
Now White Harbor is the richest city of the North
and the Manderlys the richest family.
Not in gold and silver like their Southern counterparts,
but in fish, grain and trade.
As for the other great Northern Houses,
the Starks brought them into the fold during the Age of Heroes.
A Stark wrestled an ironborn for Bear Island and gave it to the Mormonts.
A Stark granted a keep and land to a younger son, Karlon,
in return for putting down a rebellion.
His family then grew up into the Karstarks.
Starks fought the wildlings and their kings beyond the Wall
beside the Umbers of Last Hearth,
thus earning their fealty.
Boltons, back then they were the bane of the North.
A few were even rumored to wear their enemies' flayed skins as cloaks.
But after centuries of war,
they too bent the knee.
And so House Stark became the Kings in the North
but never forgot that they weren't the North.
When Aegon and his dragons landed on Westeros,
the kings of the Rock and the Reach
sent all their men to die to defend their grounds.
Torrhen Stark knelt to spare his people the same fate.
He placed duty above pride.
Just as my brothers in the Night's Watch had done for thousands of years at the Wall.
Many think of it as the end of the world, but it's not.
I've seen other land stretch as much farther than any man knows
into the Land of Always Winter
where the White Walkers came from during the Long Night.
After the First Men and the Children of the Forest beat them back,
Brandon the Builder raised the Wall
and set up the Night's Watch to guard the realms of men.
He gave us our oath,
our castles and the Gift,
the lands behind the Wall whose farms and crops sustain us.
Southerners may now mock my black brothers
as thieves, rapers and worse.
And not without cause.
But the North remembers why we're there.
And if we fall, the South will get a very harsh,
and very cold reminder.