House Bracken

The Blackwoods' ancient enemies at Stone Hedge, keepers of the other half of a grudge nine centuries deep — and, mostly to spite Raventree, swords for the green king.

The fuller tale

Stone Hedge sits across the stream from Raventree Hall and has spent nine centuries defining itself largely in opposition to the house on the other side of it — Andal-converted where the Blackwoods kept the old gods, and never inclined to let a shared liege lord at Riverrun settle an argument that predates every Tully who ever tried.

When the Dance reaches the riverlands, the Brackens’ choice of the Greens has less to do with any conviction about Aegon’s claim than with a simpler arithmetic: the Blackwoods went black, and Stone Hedge has never in nine hundred years missed a chance to stand wherever Raventree is not standing.

The result is a riverlands war fought on two overlapping fronts at once — the national quarrel between Blacks and Greens layered directly over a local one between Bracken and Blackwood that both houses would happily keep fighting long after either crown has been settled, one grudge using the other as cover for its own continuation.