House Flint (of the mountains)

Of the clans that hold the high mountains north of the Wolfswood, the Flints claim the deepest roots — first among the First Flints, as the clan styles itself, older than the lowland Flints of Widow's Watch and Flint's Finger, whom the mountain clan holds to be its own descendants rather than its kin. Their chieftain is called, with the North's usual economy, simply the Flint; Winterfell extends him a lord's courtesy all the same, whatever the mountains themselves think of lowland titles.

A Flint woman married into House Stark generations before this chronicle's own present — Arya Flint, wed to Rodrik Stark, and grandmother in turn to Eddard Stark's own father — which makes every Stark since kin to the mountain clan by a thread most of them, by this chronicle's observation, have long since stopped tracing. Old Nan, the ancient nurse of Winterfell's nursery tales, is recorded as attributing at least one Stark child's fondness for climbing to that same old Flint blood — a piece of household folklore this chronicle repeats for its charm rather than its rigor.

Torghen Flint, called Old Flint, leads the clan as this chronicle's own war reaches the mountains — a chieftain the record describes as too aged himself for campaigning, sending his sons Donnel and Artos, born of different mothers, to answer the North's call in his stead. Whether that call comes from Winterfell, from Stannis Baratheon's northern march, or from some fresher claimant this chronicle has not yet had occasion to record, the mountain clans' old habit of answering when the North is truly threatened, rather than for whichever banner currently claims to speak for it, appears by every recent report to hold as firmly as ever.