The Wolfswood

The great forest that sprawls northwest of Winterfell toward the Bay of Ice ÔÇö old pine and sentinel, direwolves in its deeps, and smallfolk who still leave offerings at heart trees.

The fuller tale

The wolfswood is the NorthÔÇÖs great forest, sprawling from WinterfellÔÇÖs walls northwest to the Bay of Ice ÔÇö old pine and sentinel, oak and ironwood, named for the packs that have always denned in its deeps. It is working wilderness rather than wasteland: foresters and smallfolk live along its fringes, leave offerings at heart trees the Andals never reached, and know precisely how far in is too far. The Starks hunt it, the direwolves of the story are whelped at its edge, and its cover swallows more than one fugitive the tale needs kept alive.

In the wars the wood does what northern woods do ÔÇö hides the weak and ambushes the strong. Theon hunts escaped captives through it in the arc that damns him; ironborn stragglers and Bolton patrols learn its hostility by turns; and a southern kingÔÇÖs army, marching on Winterfell through its snows, discovers that the wolfswood in winter is an opponent in its own right. The forest is the NorthÔÇÖs character witness: patient, unimpressed, and older than every banner that ever passed under its branches.

The fallen of this place ÔÇö if any, they are named here. Spoilers.

No death the chronicle records has come to this ground ÔÇö or none the maesters have set down.