The Kings of Winter

King of Winter is the older title, worn by the first Stark kings. Over thousands of years they spread out from Winterfell and broke every rival: the Barrow Kings after a war of a thousand years, the Red Kings of the Dreadfort, the Marsh Kings of the Neck, the Warg King of Sea Dragon Point, and lesser lords beyond counting. Later Starks called themselves Kings in the North.

Their crown was a ring of beaten bronze carved with First Men runes, with nine spikes of black iron rising from it in the shape of longswords. There was no gold in it. Torrhen Stark gave it up to Aegon the Conqueror when he knelt.

Their likenesses sit in the crypts beneath the castle, older the deeper one goes. The North keeps some of their names: Edwyn the Spring King, Walton the Moon King, Edderion the Bridegroom, Benjen the Sweet and Benjen the Bitter, Theon the Hungry Wolf, and Edrick Snowbeard, who ruled for nearly a century.