Ygritte fights as readily as any man in her raiding party and mocks anyone, brother of the Watch or fellow wildling alike, who assumes otherwise, a habit that made her the first to needle Jon Snow's southron ignorance with the phrase that has followed him ever since: you know nothing, Jon Snow. The wildlings consider red hair a mark of the old gods' favor, kissed by fire, and Ygritte wears both the color and the belief with an unbothered confidence that borders on defiance of anyone who might think less of her for it. Free folk courtship, as she explains it more than once and with some impatience, runs on stealing rather than asking, a custom that puts her and a reluctant Jon Snow on a collision course neither of them entirely anticipated. A maester notes, with the caution the subject deserves, that Ygritte's affection for Jon Snow proved genuine enough to complicate a divided loyalty neither of them fully anticipated.
Ygritte
kissed by fire
- Life
- no fixed AC year given; a young woman, some years older than Jon Snow though shorter than her age would suggest, when the story opens
- House
- none — a wildling spearwife of the Free Folk
- Allegiance
- the Free Folk
- Religion
- the Old Gods, as understood among the Free Folk
- Weapon
- bow
- Notable for
- A wildling spearwife who fell in love with Jon Snow while he lived undercover among the Free Folk
Her fate, like much of the fighting at Castle Black, is a matter the chronicle keeps veiled.
Where they appear
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.
Key events
- no fixed yearRaids among the Free Folk as a spearwife, known for her red hair and the old gods' mark it is said to carry
- 299 ACCaptures Jon Snow during a Night's Watch ranging beyond the Wall
- 299 ACLives and travels with Jon among the Free Folk as he goes undercover, growing genuinely attached to him
- 299 ACIs abandoned mid-raid when Jon chooses to return to the Night's Watch, badly straining but not entirely breaking her feelings for him
- 299 ACMarches south regardless with Mance Rayder's assault on the Wall
- 299 ACDies in the chaotic final fighting at Castle Black, in Jon Snow's arms, from an arrow of deliberately uncertain origin
Reading the character
Ygritte's blunt insistence that Jon Snow 'knows nothing' becomes one of the story's most quoted lines precisely because it is true in more than the romantic sense she intends it — his southron assumptions about the Free Folk, about honor, and about which side of the Wall actually understands the coming danger better, all take a beating across their time together. Her own certainty about her people's customs, worn without apology, makes her one of the clearest voices the books give the Free Folk as something other than the raiders the Seven Kingdoms assume them to be.
Their relationship, split between two peoples still actively at war with each other, gives the story one of its sharper illustrations of just how costly divided loyalty can become once both sides stop being abstractions and start being people each of them cares about.
The arc of Ygritte
This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
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
Is Ygritte alive?
Her fate, like much of the fighting at Castle Black, is a matter the chronicle keeps veiled.
Who is Ygritte?
A wildling spearwife who fell in love with Jon Snow while he lived undercover among the free folk, and who marched south with Mance Rayder's assault on the Wall.