The Fist of the First Men, an ancient ringfort in the haunted forest beyond the Wall.
Who fought
Lord Commander Jeor Mormont's Great Ranging against an assault of the dead
Outcome
The Night's Watch ranging camped at the Fist was overwhelmed by an assault of wights in the night, suffering catastrophic losses; the survivors fled to Craster's Keep.
A ranging sent to find missing brothers and answer old rumors camped atop an ancient ringfort for safety, and found out in the worst way that nowhere beyond the Wall is as safe as it looks.
Commanders
Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch
What happened
A great ranging beyond the Wall, sent to answer troubling rumors and find missing brothers, made camp on an ancient ringfort of standing stones for what its officers judged the safest position available. What found them there in the night was worse than any wildling raid, and the ranging suffered losses the Night's Watch had not seen in living memory.
The chronicle withholds the fuller particulars of that night for readers who have not yet reached this stage of the tale; it is enough to say that the survivors did not stay to fight a second time, and that what they carried south with them was proof, not rumor.
The Fist of the First Men in the novels
This carries how the battle plays out in the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
Lord Commander Jeor Mormont led the largest ranging the Night's Watch had mounted in generations deep into the haunted forest, hunting answers to two mysteries at once: what had become of Benjen Stark's missing party, and why the wildlings seemed to be fleeing south in such numbers rather than raiding as they always had. Finding no easy answers, Mormont made camp on an ancient ringfort of standing stones called the Fist of the First Men, a position his officers judged easily defensible.
It was not defensible against what came. In the dead of a bitter night, the camp was overrun by the walking dead — wights, reanimated corpses moving with a cold and purposeful malice no living raider could match, and worse things glimpsed only at the edges of the firelight. Hundreds of Night's Watch brothers died in the chaos, many of them rising again within moments to turn on the men beside them.
The survivors, Lord Commander Mormont among them for a time, fled south to the nearest shelter they knew: Craster's Keep, itself no safe harbor. The ranging had set out to answer rumors of trouble beyond the Wall and returned — those few who returned at all — with proof that the old stories the Watch had stopped taking seriously were not stories.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
In the timeline
SourcesACOK · JonASOS · Samwell
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What was The Fist of the First Men?
A ranging sent to find missing brothers and answer old rumors camped atop an ancient ringfort for safety, and found out in the worst way that nowhere beyond the Wall is as safe as it looks.
Is The Fist of the First Men from the books or the show?
Book canon. This entry follows George R. R. Martin's novels and histories, and notes where the television series diverges rather than following it.