The seat, the words, the line, and the tale of House Umber — drawn from the novels and the Citadel's fuller histories, with the television series set aside wherever it parts from the books.
Seat
Last Hearth
Region
The North
Founder
no chronicler puts a name to the first Umber; the house claims descent from the First Men who held the true North before the Andals ever crossed the narrow sea, a claim time has rendered untestable
Lords of Last Hearth on the North's harshest edge, the Umbers are loud, enormous by reputation, and reliably first to volunteer for whatever fight is going. Their sigil remembers an old shame turned proud — chains broken rather than worn — and their loyalty to Winterfell has generally run hotter than their patience for subtlety.
I
Giants' Blood, By Their Own Account
The Umbers claim First Men blood old enough to have shared the true North with actual giants before the Wall was raised to keep the rest of that country separate from the rest of the realm, and the family's fondness for its own size and volume — the Greatjon was in the habit of informing anyone who doubted him that giants died out three hundred years past, so nobody now living could prove him wrong about his ancestors having kept company with them — has done nothing to discourage the legend. The Citadel records the claim without endorsing it, on grounds any maester will recognize as familiar: a house this loud about its own blood rarely troubles itself with a chronicler's demand for proof.
The broken silver chains on the Umber sigil commemorate an older and less flattering story than the giant's boast — an ancestor taken captive by some rival the family no longer names, who broke his chains and came home rather than stay taken. Last Hearth has worn that old shame turned into a badge for longer than anyone now living can date precisely, on the North's harshest edge, where the family's reputation for answering trouble loudly and first has had rather more practical use than its reputation for restraint.
II
First to the Muster
When Balon Greyjoy crowned himself and burned the Lannister fleet at anchor, every northern house sworn to Winterfell answered Eddard Stark's call to arms, and House Umber's reputation for arriving loud and early held true to form; Last Hearth's distance from Winterfell has never once been an excuse the family found acceptable to use. The habit served House Umber well enough across a rebellion most of the North barely had cause to remember afterward, one more muster answered on schedule in a house whose real distinction lay in doing so without complaint.
The muster's routine familiarity did not survive the peace that followed it for long. Guarding the Bay of Seals against wildling raiders out of the true North became enough of a standing concern in the years after that Last Hearth's own household eventually had cause to ask House Manderly, a hundred leagues south at White Harbor, for the ships it had never needed to build itself — a request the family made without apparent embarrassment, since a house that measures its worth in swords rather than sails saw nothing shameful in borrowing what it lacked.
In the chronicle
The present tale
This chapter carries the house's fortunes into the novels' events — veiled until you choose to read on.
§
A House Split Three Ways
Jon Umber rode south for Robb Stark loud enough, as ever, to be heard the length of the column, drew a blade on his own liege lord over an insult at supper and lost two fingers to the direwolf Grey Wind for it, then gave Robb the North's first oath of fealty as King in the North not long after — the sort of reversal that only ever seemed to embarrass the Greatjon for as long as it took him to shout past it. He was taken captive at his king's own wedding feast at the Twins, and what became of him after, no chronicle this maester holds says with any confidence.
His capture left Last Hearth to his uncles, Mors called Crowfood and Hother called Whoresbane, jointly named castellans in the Greatjon's stead — and the two men split the burden the North's collapse handed them along lines that only make sense taken together. Hother bent the knee to House Bolton, publicly and audibly, because his own nephew's life hung on it; the Freys held the Greatjon, and Hother's fury at the men responsible for it was, by every report reaching this chronicle, restrained by nothing but that hostage's safety. Mors took the opposite road into the open: he rode for Stannis Baratheon's cause, and in the war's last bitter winter his men, camped outside a burning Winterfell with horns sounding through the blizzard to draw Ramsay Bolton's garrison out, took captive a fleeing Theon Greyjoy and the girl the North had been told, and mostly believed, was Arya Stark. What the two Umber uncles' quarrel over strategy amounted to in the end — genuine division or a single family playing both sides until one of them paid off — not even the Citadel is certain has finished being decided.
In the chronicle
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.
The people of House Umber
The lords, ladies, and branches of Umber the books name — the notable, the infamous, and the merely unlucky.
Jon Umberthe Greatjon
Lord of Last Hearth
fl. 298–299 AC
He rode south for Robb Stark loud enough to be heard the length of the column, once drew a blade on his liege lord in an argument over supper and lost two fingers to the direwolf Grey Wind for it, then gave Robb the first oath of fealty as King in the North not long after — manners he never quite recovered, loyalty he never once questioned. He was taken captive at a wedding that killed better men than the etiquette it broke, and no chronicle the Citadel holds says what became of him after.
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.
Jon Umber, called the Smalljonthe Smalljon
heir to Last Hearth
d. 299 AC
The Greatjon's son and heir, nearly his father's size already and still growing by every account that troubled to measure him, killed defending Robb Stark's own table at the Red Wedding when the guest right both households had trusted proved worth nothing at all.
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.
Mors UmberCrowfood
castellan of Last Hearth
The Greatjon's uncle, missing an eye to a crow he insists tried to rob him of it while he slept off a drunk, and by far the louder of the two uncles left holding Last Hearth in his captive nephew's stead — declared for Stannis Baratheon's cause outright rather than hedge, and rode with the men who eventually pulled Theon Greyjoy and his companion out of the snow outside a burning Winterfell.
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.
Hother UmberWhoresbane
castellan of Last Hearth
The Greatjon's other uncle, a name earned young and violently enough in Oldtown that the household prefers to let the epithet stand without repeating the story behind it — bent the knee to House Bolton in his nephew's stead, a fealty this chronicle records as coerced by the Greatjon's captivity rather than freely given.
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.
What the record disputes
Where the sources disagree or a song outruns the maesters, the chronicle marks the doubt rather than settling it.
"Death Before Chains" is attested only outside the novels, in semi-canon heraldic material; the Chronicle does not present it as book canon.
The Greatjon's ultimate fate in the war is not recorded in any published novel; the Chronicle leaves it open rather than guess.
Explore further
Members
What is House Umber known for?
Lords of Last Hearth on the North's harshest edge, the Umbers are loud, enormous by reputation, and reliably first to volunteer for whatever fight is going. Their sigil remembers an old shame turned proud — chains broken rather than worn — and their loyalty to Winterfell has generally run hotter than their patience for subtlety.
Where is the seat of House Umber?
House Umber holds Last Hearth, in The North. The chronicle traces the house from its founding down to its part in the present tale, marking legend as legend wherever the songs run ahead of the record.
Is House Umber in the books or only the show?
Book canon. This history follows George R. R. Martin's novels first, then the histories — Fire & Blood and The World of Ice & Fire — and does not follow the television series where it diverges.