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The Old Ones are minor characters in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series. They are legendary gods from the Far East of Essos who are said to have lived deep below the ruined subterranean cities on the island of Leng.
History[]
The Old Ones are deities originating from the culture of Leng, an island filled with forests, jungles, countless types of tigers, and monkeys, including enormous intelligent apes. The island of Leng is ruled by a god-empress and is known as a haunt of demons and sorcerers. It was isolated for most of its history, as the Lengii did not welcome outsiders, especially those who came for the island's resources. According to legends, the Old Ones used to give commands to the Lengii rulers, and they were the ones wanting to kill outsiders. Merchants from the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, however, periodically managed to open Leng to trade. Like Yi Ti, Leng is said to have huge, complex underground cities beneath. The island's jungles contain strange, overgrown ruins of unknown origin and massive fallen buildings that are so overgrown with plants that only rubble is visible. However, beneath those buildings are massive underground labyrinths of tunnels and caverns, leading to vast chambers, and further going down those steps leads to descending hundreds of feet into the earth, and the Old Ones are said to reside in those complex ruins.
The god-empresses of Leng are said to have had regular congresses with the Old Ones, whom they saw as gods. According to the Jade Compendium, the Old Ones who lived below Leng's subterranean ruins commanded the Empress of Leng to kill the foreign merchants on at least four occasions. Legends claim that the Old Ones were responsible for massacres that were only stopped once the YiTish Empire conquered Leng. At one point in history, the island was conquered by Jar Har, the sixth sea-green emperor of Yi Ti, who sealed all the entrances to the underground cities and ordered them to be forgotten. Afterward, the Old Ones were left underground, and the massacres stopped, after which there were no more massacres. The Lengii population was confined to the southern third of their own island, while the YiTish colonized the rest of it.
Emperor Jar Har sent his warriors into the complex, deep underground ruins, but they either returned insane or vanished altogether, making the Old Ones the presumed responsible beings for this. The YiTish emperor had all entrances to the underground ruins sealed and forbade access into them, under penalty of death. Four hundred years before the timeline of The World of Ice and Fire, Leng overthrew YiTish rule, and rule over the island passed to God-Empress Khiara the Great, who was of pure Lengii descent, but to please her mixed subjects, she took two husbands, one Lengii and one YiTish, and her daughters would do the same, establishing a lasting custom whereby the god-empress of Leng takes one Lengii husband and one YiTish. Despite the end of YiTish rule over Leng, the god-empresses never re-opened access to the underground tunnels ever again and possibly never met the Old Ones again. The island is no longer close to outsiders, and the Westerosi Ser Corlys Velaryon was able to visit it and even received many wealthy gifts. If they are real, it is unknown why the Old Ones were so opposed to outsiders entering their island.
However, according to legend, the Old Ones still live in those underground cities, remaining myth and legend to this day, and Leng is still known as an infested island.
Trivia[]
- The Old Ones may be a reference by George R. R. Martin to H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones.
- The name of the island of the Old Ones, may be a reference by George R. R. Martin to H. P. Lovecraft's Leng, a fictional American plateau.
External Links[]
- Old Ones on the A Wiki of Ice and Fire.
