Skagos
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Skagos is the largest island in the Bay of Seals, off the northeastern coast of the North, and though it owes fealty to Winterfell in name, its people live largely beyond any outside rule.
Rumours of savagery, cannibalism and unicorn-riders surround the Skagosi, a folk the rest of Westeros knows more by hearsay than by direct dealing.
Description
Island and people
Skagos is the largest of the islands guarding the mouth of the Bay of Seals, a mountainous rock with treacherous shores where autumn cold can freeze ships solid. It belongs to the North only on paper: its people, the Skagosi — "sons of the stone" in the Old Tongue — have little dealing with the rest of the northmen, who call them skaggs.
They are said to live in caves among the mountains, their warriors said to eat the hearts and livers of the men they kill, and to still make sacrifices before weirwoods. Lord Roose Bolton claims the forbidden custom of the first night still lives on in Skagos. When they trade, they offer furs, obsidian daggers and unicorn horns, and the lords of their clans are said to ride shaggy unicorns; some maesters suspect ibbenese blood in their people, others that they descend in part from giants.
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History
Feast of Skane
According to The Ending of the World by Maester Balder, in ancient days the men of Skagos crossed to neighbouring Skane, seized its women, killed its men and devoured their hearts and livers in a single fortnight. It became known as the Feast of Skane, and the island has stood empty ever since; some also blame the cannibals of Skagos for the destruction of Castle Austere.
For generations the Skagosi crossed the bay to trade and to raid the mainland, until Brandon IX Stark, King in the North, burned their ships and put an end to the raiding. No one knows for certain when they began to pay fealty to Winterfell.
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Rebellion against the Starks
They rose in arms against House Stark during the reign of Daeron II Targaryen. The revolt dragged on for years and cost thousands of lives, among them Lord Barthogan Stark.
Legend holds that Bael the Bard once entered Winterfell disguised as a singer called Sygerrik of Skagos. Over the centuries a few Skagosi have worn the black: a Crowl served as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch more than a thousand years ago, and according to The Chronicles of the Black Centaur a Stane briefly served as First Ranger.
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Recent events
Shipwrecks
Sailing from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea toward Braavos aboard the Blackbird, Samwell Tarly sights a wrecked galley near the rocks of Skagos, the bodies of her crew washed up on shore and being picked apart by crows and crabs.
Soon after, the galleys Oledo and Old Mother's Son, sailed from the Wall, wreck against the island's rocks as well; Cotter Pyke writes to the Lord Commander that the Storm Crows witnessed the sinking. It is then revealed that Osha carried Rickon Stark to Skagos, hiding him there with his direwolf.
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The physical world
La isla es montañosa y sus costas son de aguas traicioneras, con corrientes y picos, haciendo la navegación dificil especialmente durante las tormentas de otoño, cuando el frío puede congelar las naves.
Geography · Festín de Cuervos, Capítulo 15, Samwell.
Los mercaderes afirman que los señores de los clanes de Skagos montan en unicornios peludos.
Population · El Mundo de Hielo y Fuego, Los Siete Reinos, El Norte.
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On the map
On the map
What we are not sure about
PositionWe worked it out
The position was inferred from the label on the base map rather than from a symbol of its own: it marks the area, not the point.
Books and show
Where it appears
In the books (5)
- The World of Ice & Fire
- A Dance with Dragons
- A Feast for Crows
- A Storm of Swords
- A Clash of Kings
By work
| Work | Format | Where it is told |
|---|---|---|
| A Feast for Crows | Book | Shipwrecks |