The Heart Tree
At the centre of the godswood stands a weirwood older than any record of it. Its bark is smooth and pale as bone, and its leaves are a deep red, each with five points. At its roots lies a small pool. The water is dark and cold.
Long ago someone cut a face into the trunk. It is long and solemn, and sap gathers in the carved eyes and dries there, red. No one knows whose hand made it. The North believes the old gods look out through such faces, and that no one can lie before them.
Starks are married in its sight and swear their oaths before it. Those raised to the Seven in the south are seldom easy under its eyes.
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The Godswood
Three acres of the old forest, never cut, kept inside the walls because the castle was raised around them.
Weirwood
The pale tree with red leaves and red sap that never rots, holy to the old gods and carved with their faces.
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.
In the journey: The Godswood