The Grey King is said to have ruled the first ironborn from a throne of driftwood and whalebone in an age too old for the Citadel to date with any confidence, and to have wed a mermaid besides — the kind of founding tale the ironborn tell with a straight face and a raised horn both. What the maesters can attest with more confidence is that the Old Way took hold early and held fast: raiding, not farming, remains the ironborn's stated calling, and the Drowned God's clergy still preach that what is dead may never die.
A kingsmoot's squabbling captains gave way, in time, to the hereditary Hoare kings, whose black-blooded line reaved so far it claimed the riverlands of the mainland besides — until Aegon the Conqueror burned Harren the Black alive in his own new-built hall, and let the ironborn choose their own liege from among themselves rather than name one over them. They chose Vickon Greyjoy of Pyke, and so a house that had been one kraken among many rose, more by the Conqueror's whim than by any triumph of its own, to rule all seven islands. Dagon Greyjoy's reaving of the sunset sea a century ago is still cited by the ironborn as proof that the Old Way never truly died, whatever the green lands prefer to believe. A more recent rebellion under the current Lord Reaper of Pyke ended in defeat and a hostage taken north — a debt some among the ironborn have not forgotten.