Free Folk
The Free Folk, called wildlings by the people south of the Wall, are the many peoples who live in the lands beyond the Wall, in the haunted forest, the Frostfangs, and the frozen wastes of the far north. They are descended from the same stock as the northmen of Westeros but were left on the wrong side of the Wall when it was raised, and over the millennia they have grown into something apart -- bound by no lords, no kneeling, and no laws but their own.
They call themselves the free folk because, as they see it, they bow to no king and own no master; a man south of the Wall is a kneeler, and they hold such servitude in contempt. They take what they can hold, and a man who would wed a woman must often steal her, proving his worth.
Society
The free folk are not one people but many: villagers, cave-dwellers, the cannibalistic ice-river clans, the Thenns of the high valley with their bronze arms and their own tongue, the cave-painted Hornfoots, the giants, and others. They have no standing army and no central authority, which is both their strength and their weakness -- a host of fierce individuals who do not easily unite.
History
In rare ages a leader strong enough to bind the quarrelsome clans together arises and takes the title King-Beyond-the-Wall. Such kings have led their people south against the Wall before, only to be broken by the Night's Watch and the lords of the North. In the present day Mance Rayder, a former man of the Night's Watch, has done what few before him achieved: he has gathered nearly the whole of the free folk into a single great host.
Their migration south is driven not by mere raiding but by terror. The Others are stirring in the cold dark, and the free folk flee before them, seeking to put the Wall between themselves and the things that walk in winter.
Notable Members
- Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall
- Tormund Giantsbane, a renowned raider and chieftain
- Ygritte, a spearwife of the haunted forest
- Spearwives, the women who fight alongside the men
- Craster, a wildling who keeps to the old, dark bargains
Significance
The free folk are caught between the swords of the Night's Watch before them and the unhuman horror of the Others behind. Their plight, long dismissed by the southern realms as mere raiding, is in truth the first wave of the war for the living.