In that darkness the White Walkers came for the first time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds

Winter Has Come

The White Walkers were thousands of years old, coming from the time preceding the Age of Heroes. Born of powerful and untested magic, they were created to protect the Children of the Forest from the First Men, who had waged war on them ever since they had arrived from Essos. However, the White Walkers eventually broke free of the Children's control and became the most feared creatures in Westeros, posing a threat to anything living.


Eight thousand years before Robert's Rebellion, the longest winter in history fell on the entire world and lasted a whole generation. In the darkness and cold of the "Long Night," the White Walkers descended upon Westeros from the Far North, killing all in their path and reanimating the dead as wights to serve as their footsoldiers in their army of the dead. Eventually, the people of Westeros rallied against them and, in a conflict known as the War for the Dawn, defeated the White Walkers and drove them back into the frozen Far North. With help from giants and the Children of the Forest, the Wall was raised to bar their return. The Night's Watch was founded to guard the Wall and the realms of men should the mysterious threat ever rise again.


Although the White Walkers have faded into legend over the centuries, disturbing reports began to reach the Night's Watch, just before the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings. The return of the White Walkers was confirmed during the Great Ranging undertaken by Lord Commander Jeor Mormont and by an unprecedented attack by the wight army on the wildling settlement of Hardhome. Despite repeated pleas for support from the Night's Watch, the rest of the Seven Kingdoms have turned a blind eye to the return of the White Walkers as they remain embroiled in their own civil wars, believing the White Walkers to be purely mythological, much like giants and Children of the Forest, who have also faded into legend. The legendary White Walkers' aim was to erase the memory of the race of men from all existence through the death of the Three-Eyed Raven and pass over an endless winter. Their goal was very nearly achieved until their ruler, the Night King, was destroyed by Arya Stark at the Battle of Winterfell, ending the Great War and preventing the return of the Long Night with the extinction of the White Walkers and their magic.