Brandon the Builder

Legends from the Reach make him a descendant of Bloodraven — no, of Brandon of the Bloody Blade, and through him of the mythical Garth Greenhand, though that lineage belongs more to myth than to any record that can be checked.

Other stories, these from the Stormlands, place him as a boy alongside Durran Godsgrief, helping him raise Storm's End. The two traditions come from different regions and do not always agree; the wiki itself presents them as rival versions rather than one settled history.

Tradition holds that Brandon raised the Wall once the Long Night had ended, though nobody explains how much time passed between the two events. According to Winter Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell, credited to Maester Childer, he sought the aid of the Children of the Forest to build it, and had to learn the True Tongue to speak with them.

The tales describe enormous blocks of ice, moved with the Children's magic and the strength of giants. It is the sort of detail no witness could have left in writing, which is why maesters treat it as legend rather than history.

Brandon is also credited with raising Winterfell, again with the help of giants according to Northern legend. He is said to have prayed in the castle's godswood, the same one his descendants would keep visiting generation after generation.

Every Winter King and every Lord of Winterfell who came after claims his blood. It is the foundation on which House Stark's legitimacy in the North rests, though the wiki itself admits that separating the man from the legend is no longer possible.

He is also credited with granting the Gift, a strip of land twenty-five leagues wide south of the Wall, given to the Night's Watch for its upkeep. Not every maester agrees: some argue it was another Brandon of House Stark, at a different time, who made that donation.

The last work credited to him lies at the other end of Westeros: the stone Hightower at Oldtown. Some stories say King Uthor of the Hightower commissioned it directly from Brandon; others credit not him but a son of his who bore the same name.