Legends of the Reach claim they were led by Garth Greenhand. First MenĮventually between eight thousand and twelve thousand years ago, the children came in contact with the First Men, the first outsiders. They called Dorne the 'Empty Land', however, and maesters doubt that the children lived on the Iron Islands. The children lived throughout Westeros, from the Summer Sea to the Land of Always Winter. The two races are believed to have sometimes fought, since Maester Kennet found a giant's barrow near Long Lake with obsidian arrowheads in the ribs. For thousands of years during the Dawn Age the children and the giants shared the landmass that later became known as Westeros. It is unknown where the children of the forest came from, nor for how long they were in their land before humans arrived. History Dawn AgeĬhild of the forest, in its natural habitat. There is a ruined settlement of carved trees and haunted grottoes, called by the Dothraki Vaes Leisi, in the Kingdom of the Ifequevron. It is unknown if there is a connection between the children of the forest and the Ifequevron, or 'woods walkers', of northern Essos. Septon Barth believed that the children could communicate from afar with ravens. The children of the forest believed that the weirwood trees were gods, and when they died they became a part of them. It was the children who carved faces on weirwoods to keep watch over the woods. These included having power over the beasts of the wood, the ability to wear an animal's skin, the skill to create music so beautiful as to bring tears to the eyes of any who heard it, the greensight ability and the ability to speak to the dead. Legends say the children of the forest were gifted with supernatural powers. The children used their weirwood hunting bows and obsidian weapons in battle, but also used powerful magic. They were a people with a deep connection to the land. The children had no books, no ink, no parchment and no written language. Males and females both hunted side by side as wood dancers, using obsidian weapons, weirwood bows, and flying snares made with grasses. The children lived off the land, using stone and obsidian implements, wearing bark leg-bindings and shirts of woven leaves, dwelling in caves, crannogs, and hidden tree villages. They did not use metal, weave cloth, or build cities. The children are omnivores as they feed on different types of food they find and cultivate in and around their caves such as fish, meat, mushroom, cheese, milk, oats, barleycorn, dried fruit, and onions. Once they are bound to a weirwood, they live far longer than other children. The chosen ones are not robust, and do not live long on the earth, but they have the gift of greensight and are known as greenseers. Very rarely, one of the children is born with mossy green or blood red eyes, a sign that they have been chosen by the Old Gods.

They often sing in their language, the True Tongue. They weave leaves and vines and flowers into their hair, and wear cloaks of leaves. The children are slight, quick, and graceful. They usually have large gold and green eyes slitted like those of a cat, allowing them to see in dark passages. They have large ears that can hear things that no man can hear. Their hands have only three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails. They have nut-brown skin, dappled like a deer's with paler spots.

The children are smaller than humans, but they are not childlike. Their hands had only three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails.

A son of the forest summary