Old Gods Quotes

“Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales.
"The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us wok dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of the earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sun our songs ten thousand years."
Meera said, "You speak the Common Tongue now."
"For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home."
"Two hundred years?" said Meera.
The child smiled. "Men, they are the children.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Kill him with claws like the beast that you are, or not at all.”
― H.M. Long, Hall of Smoke

“It's one thing to forbid the worship of a god, and another to command that it be forgotten. One day I found the oldest tree of all, a black oak bigger than twelve men could encircle with their arms, and I knew it for the one Na called Heart of The Wood. Dolls of twigs and shucks dangled from its branches: right side up to cure barreness, upside down to bring on a miscarriage. Mudwomen had dared to put them there, knowing that if the kingsmen had caught them in the woods out of turn, they might also hang from those branches.”
― Sarah Micklem, Firethorn

“The Brave, the Vengeful, the Swift and the Watchful…”
― H.M. Long, Hall of Smoke

“My lord.” The voice made Jon glance back in surprise. Samwell Tarly was on his feet. The fat boy wiped his sweaty palms against his tunic. “Might I . . . might I go as well? To say my words at this heart tree?”

“Does House Tarly keep the old gods too?” Mormont asked.

“No, my lord,” Sam replied in a thin, nervous voice. The high officers frightened him, Jon knew, the Old Bear most of all. “I was named in the light of the Seven at the sept on Horn Hill, as my father was, and his father, and all the Tarlys for a thousand years.”

“Why would you forsake the gods of your father and your House?” wondered Ser Jaremy Rykker.

“The Night’s Watch is my House now,” Sam said. “The Seven have never answered my prayers. Perhaps the old gods will.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Even as a curious song filters through the streets of
San Miguel, one with the heartbeat of the guitarron, one with a melancholy melody, it isn’t enough to help him forget that he must continue to speak the creature's name. Not because it prevents the old gods from coming back to life, but to keep them from slipping into those dark places, like sun-obscured cenotes, where slivers of light cannot reach far enough to keep those malevolent things from being forgotten.”
― Mary Rajotte, Collage Macabre: An Exhibition of Art Horror

“Even as a curious song filters through the streets of San Miguel, one with the heartbeat of the guitarron, one with a melancholy melody, it isn’t enough to help him forget that he must continue to speak the creature's name. Not because it prevents the old gods from coming back to life, but to keep them from slipping into those dark places, like sun-obscured cenotes, where slivers of light cannot reach far enough to keep those malevolent things from being forgotten.”
― Mary Rajotte

“If you make enough noise, no matter your instrument, you can keep the old gods alive forever.”
― Peter Bebergal, Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll