Free Folk

 

The Free Folk is the name used to refer to themselves by the people who live in the lands beyondthe Wall, still on the continent of Westeros but beyond the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. The name they employ makes reference to their society, which recognizes no political authority and no claim of ownership over the land. The people of the Seven Kingdoms refer to the Free Folk derogatorily as wildlings.

The term "wildlings" is sometimes also employed to refer to the members of the hill tribes of the Vale that defy the rule of House Arryn, but out of context the term is usually understood to refer to the peoples living beyond the Wall.

 

The Free Folk are descended from the First Men, as are the inhabitants of the North. They were, essentially, the people unlucky enough to be living north of the Wall when it was constructed eight thousand years ago. Besides this shared ethnic heritage, their common descent means that there are also many cultural similarities between the wildlings and the Northerners. The wildlings are much closer in lifestyle and habits to how the First Men lived thousands of years ago, as the North has come under some cultural influence from their Andal neighbors who invaded southern Westeros six thousand years ago, and particularly since the Seven Kingdoms were united into a single realm by the Targaryen Conquest three hundred years ago.

 

Over the ages, the people of the Seven Kingdoms to the south had largely forgotten why the Wall was constructed in the first place and came to believe that it exists to protect the realm from the wildlings, whom they regard as primitive savages and barbarians. However, the Night's Watch knows it was originally constructed to defend against the possible return of the near-mythical White Walkers. Since the White Walkers did not return for the past eight thousand years, the Night's Watch has mostly shifted its focus to preventing the wildlings from crossing south of the Wall, and sending out patrols into the wilderness to keep track of wildling movements. The shift of focus also reduced the Night's Watch from a band of honorable warriors into largely a dumping ground for exiled criminals.