Durran

According to legend, Durran won the heart of Elenei, daughter of the god of the sea and the goddess of the wind, and took her as his wife. The match enraged her parents, who unleashed monstrous storms upon the castle where the wedding was held, storms that swept away the guests and Durran's own family.

Durran refused to yield: he declared war on the gods themselves and raised one castle after another, each larger than the last, along the shores of Shipbreaker Bay. Every one fell to the same fury that had destroyed the first, until a seventh finally withstood the storms. Some say the children of the forest lent their aid; others credit the counsel of a young man who would later be known as Brandon the Builder.

Durran is also said to have conquered the Rainwood, land his own son would later return to the children of the forest during his reign.

Tradition holds that Durran ruled for a thousand years, the source of one of his bynames. Archmaester Glaive doubted that timeline, arguing that the so-called King of a Thousand Years was not one man but a line of kings who shared the same name.

The confusion has a simple explanation within House Durrandon itself: its kings traditionally named their firstborn heirs Durran in honor of the founder, making it difficult for maesters to tell one Durran from another in the old records.