Talon

Beneath the black leather grip and the dark rippling of the steel lies a bastard blade, longer than a longsword, its fullers cut to lighten the weight and its pommel a piece of white stone weighted with lead to balance the edge.

For nearly five hundred years it passed from father to son within House Mormont, until Jeor handed it to Jorah when he left to join the Night's Watch; when Jorah fled justice into exile in the Free Cities, he left the sword behind and it returned to his father's hands.

Jeor liked to point out why the steel endured where everything else didn't: fire had melted the pommel's silver and burned away the crossguard and grip, as dry leather and old wood would; the blade itself, he said, would need a fire a hundred times hotter to do it harm.

After a wight attacked Castle Black and Jon Snow saved his life, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont chose to settle the debt with his own house's sword; he had the pommel, until then carved as a bear's head, replaced with a wolf's head, fangs bared, with garnet chips for eyes, in tribute to Ghost.

Jon took the weapon aware of the irony: a bastard wielding a bastard sword. He named the blade Longclaw, reasoning simply that wolves have claws too, just like bears.

With Longclaw at his belt, Jon Snow fought the wildlings encountered during the Lord Commander's ranging beyond the Wall.

The same blade was with him afterward in his clash against Qhorin Halfhand, the ranger who tested him before sending him to infiltrate the free folk.

Longclaw helped Jon cut his way free when he escaped the Thenns at Queensgate, one of the Wall's hidden passages.

Months later he drew it again at Castle Black, during the joint assault of the free folk and the giants against the Night's Watch stronghold.

As Lord Commander, Jon Snow used Longclaw to execute Janos Slynt.

Slynt had openly defied one of his orders, and that insubordination was the reason for the execution.