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Revision as of 19:17, 17 July 2012
A map showing the location of the Gift on the continent of Westeros. Bran's Gift is shown in green, the New Gift in red.
The Gift is a region to the south of the Wall under the control of the Night's Watch. It lies at the northen edge of the region known as the North. It was donated to the Night's Watch by House Stark when the order was founded thousands of years ago, in order to support the Night's Watch with food and provisions. The abandoned town of Queenscrown lies within the Gift.[1] The closest village to the Wall within the Gift that common peasants actually live in is Mole's Town.[2]
In the books
In the Song of Ice and Fire novels the Gift was donated to the Night's Watch by King Brandon Stark, popularly believed to be Bran the Builder, though maesters believe it was a different Brandon.
The Gift originally extended for twenty-five leagues (seventy-five miles) south of the Wall. This was doubled some two centuries ago when Queen Alysanne Targaryen, the sister-wife of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator, visited the Wall on the back of her dragon, Silverwing. Impressed with the valor, bravery, and loyalty of the Night's Watch, Alysanne urged her husband to extend the Gift. He did so by adding the "New Gift" to the existing territory. The New Gift extends for an additional twenty-five leagues to the south, giving the Night's Watch control of all the lands from coast to coast for one hundred and fifty miles south of the Wall.
The declining numbers of the Night's Watch have reduced their ability to both hold the Wall and defend the villagers of the Gift from the small wildling parties that are sometimes able to bypass the Wall (by either climbing over lightly-defended areas or going around by sea). As a result the Gift is lightly-settled close to the Wall, with more farms and villages located in the New Gift close to the lands of House Umber. The most notable incursion into the Gift was by Raymun Redbeard, the King-beyond-the-Wall of more than a century ago, who reached Long Lake before being defeated by the armies of House Stark.
See also
References
- ↑ HBO viewers guide, season 1 map, Gift entry
- ↑ "Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things"
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