The Godswood
The castle was raised around this wood, and no one has cut it since. Three acres of the first forest stand inside Winterfell’s walls: sentinels and soldier pines, oaks, ironwood, hawthorn and ash, grown so thick that their branches close overhead. The ground under them is dark and soft.
At the centre of the wood the heart tree stands over a small dark pool. Elsewhere the ground is warm. Hot springs rise under the trees, and beneath the windows of the Guest House they fill three small pools that steam on cold mornings.
An iron gate leads in, and smaller gates of wood. The Starks pray here and marry here, before the face in the tree. When Lord Eddard has passed a sentence of death and carried it out with his own hand, he comes afterward to sit by the pool and clean the blade.
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The Heart Tree
The pale weirwood at the centre of the godswood, with a long, grave face cut into the trunk above a dark pool.
The Old Gods
The nameless gods of stone, stream and tree, first kept by the children of the forest and still kept in the North.
Weirwood
The pale tree with red leaves and red sap that never rots, holy to the old gods and carved with their faces.
The Guest House
Lodging for Winterfell’s guests, on the edge of the godswood across from the heart tree, with warm pools below its windows.
In the journey: The Godswood