Epilogue I: Tale As Old As Time
Tale As Old As Time
by Christine of Tarth
*note: Christine of Tarth teaches medieval history at the university of Oldtown and is todays' leading specialist on the era between the reign of Aerys II and Daenerys I. She has written a number of highly regarded books on the subject, such as "The Iron Throne" and "The War of the Five Kings" but is equally well-known as author of popular historical novels like "The Winter Rose: A Love Story".
In this article, Christine of Tarth writes about a historical sensation that had made it to the front pages of most of Westeros' newspapers during the past weeks.
...
Long before I knew that I would one day be a history professor, I knew that there was a reason the word "story" is part of "history".
Because for me, history is a tapestry woven out of countless of stories. Stories of greed and hatred, of bravery and heroics, of loyalty and - maybe most import of all - of love.
Many of those stories we know, but there is one of which the ending always eluded us, thus staying intriguing for many centuries.
We all know the tale of Sandor and Sansa, have heard about them in school (with more or less enthusiasm) when we read Richard Throwsapples heart-rending play "Sandor and Sansa" which has the lovers committing a double suicide in the end.
We've seen the Waltney's animation movie "The Maiden and the Bear" (from which I stole the title to this article) that gave them a happy ending - a fact that back then was heavily frowned upon by serious historians.
But we never knew what really happened, what had been at the core of this fabled relationship and whether or not the union was a happy one.
Historians have been convinced for a long time that it wasn't.
Historical sources were unanimous about Sansa Clegane (born to the House of Stark) being one of the most beautiful women of her time, well-educated, kind and courteous.
Her husband, however, is equally without contradiction reported as not only being a big brute of a man, scarred and ugly, but a conscienceless butcher who paid no mind to the worth of an individual life.
It didn't seem feasible that Sansa Stark consented to this marriage or was happy with it.
Subsequently, last century literature is full of dire stories of fair maidens being brought to their ruin by dark and violent men, a warning to girls of the better society to keep to the rules and teachings of their elders and accept the matches made for them.
The opinion that Sansa Clegane was a victim of an abusive husband, forced to live in a union socially beneath her and bearing the man she hated half a dozen children became so popular over the last decades, that we nowadays speak of the "Sansa Syndrome" when it comes to women who cannot free themselves from abusive and unhealthy relationships.
All this, however, has been disproved just a few weeks ago with a sensational discovery.
As often when it comes to important scientific discoveries, coincidence played a big part.
A couple of weeks ago, a violent storm devastated the region around White Harbour City, destroying in its wake extensive parts of the picturesque ruins of the medieval Manderly Castle.
While clearing away the debris, working crews found a heavy oaken chest, carefully wrapped and sealed, which apparently had been walled in somewhere.
After being brought to the archaeological department of our university and opened with the greatest possible care by specialists, we found that instead of gold and diamonds, the chest contained riches far more valuable to us historians.
Letters. Hundreds of letters, some of them already fallen to dust, some crumbled or with writing that had turned illegible over the last 900 years.
But some of them, written with good ink on durable, costly material, were still in surprisingly good shape.
All of these letters were addressed to one Lady Elenor Manderly, born Elenor Clegane, the daughter of Sansa and Sandor Clegane.
Lady Elenor must have been a very diligent correspondent. She maintained communication with almost all the major houses of Westeros at the time, many of whom the Cleganes were connected to by blood.
She was in contact with the Lannisters of Casterly Rock ("Uncle Tyrion"), the children of Lord and Lady of Tarth, the Targaryens (both the Queen herself and Jon Targaryen and his children), the Baratheons and of course the Starks.
Her aunt Arya had become Lady Baratheon, courtesy of the "Bastard Law" which allowed her husband to claim his birthright as Robert Baratheon's son. While the law had been specifically created by Queen Daenerys with Jon Targaryen in mind (the father of King Benjen I.), more than just these two men profited from it.
But by far the most letters she received from her mother.
Almost every single letter Sansa Stark wrote dispels the preconceived notions we had about the relationship she had to her husband.
A woman of her time, she would never have divulged intimate details of her marriage to her own daughter, but it's the little things here and there that give the impression of Sandor and Sansa Clegane having shared a loving relationship.
Many remarks like the following are to be found:
Spring has finally come to the Neck, and I am so glad for it. This morning, your father brought me the first violets he had found blooming on the moors. I think I teared up a bit when he held them out to me in his big hands and I made sure he knew how much I valued his gift.
And instead of suffering from "Sansa Syndrome", the Lady Clegane seemed a resolute matron who led an efficient household with iron rules to which even her intimidating husband had to bow.
I was finally done with spring cleaning in the new hall we've built last year, just taking some refreshments with the maids who'd been diligently at work with me, and you wouldn't believe what your father did. Having been out hunting with some of the men-at-arms he came back, covered to his neck in mud and made to stomp into the hall and sit on the freshly scrubbed benches.
I am quite sure his ears are still ringing from the scolding I gave him.
I could probably cite each and every letter for more details, but the most impressive - the most heart-rending proof of what Sansa Clegane felt for her husband is the long, detailed letter she wrote to her daughter when she informed her of her father's passing.
I will miss him like a vital part of my body. Every breath I take will be filled with pain. He was the blood in my veins and the air in my lungs, he was my heart and my soul and at the moment I cannot fathom how I should go on living without him.
I will, of that I am sure, because I know he would want me to, would want me to take care of our children and grandchildren for as long as I am able and in this I will find the joy that life has left for me, but with my loss so fresh, I feel as if the sun has vanished forever from my life.
As heartbreaking as those lines are; from a scientific perspective, the pages following the description of Sansa's feelings are far more interesting. Maybe to deal with her grief, Sansa Clegane describes to her daughter the various milestones of her relationship to her husband, although Elenor certainly knew many if not all of the facts detailed there.
There are some astounding discoveries we made when reading this account.
While we knew that the pair had come to know each other in King's Landing (they'd first met in Winterfell, though), we always assumed that Sandor Clegane, after he kidnapped her, forced her into marriage during their travels to meet with Queen Daenerys, maybe even in consequence of having raped and impregnated her.
In truth, though, they had already married in King's Landing in a secret, ancient and quite romantic ceremony after having hopelessly fallen in love with one another.
This explains another mystery we hadn't been able to solve.
The wedding register of the Sept of Baelor records a wedding between Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark, later annulled on grounds of both partners having already been wed to still living spouses at the time.
While we knew about Tysha Lannister, it seemed puzzling how Sansa Stark could have married anyone right under the nose of King Joffrey, least of all a man she didn't want.
After having fled King's Landing with the aid of Lord Varys (more on his role in the grand scheme of things can be read in "The Iron Throne") the couple together with Tyrion Lannister went to Braavos in search of Tyrion's long lost first wife.
The search was successful and quick, reuniting Tyrion not only with his wife but with his daughter Lanna. (Tyrion and Tysha Lannister had three more children, two daughters and one son.)
They were guests of Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos for a few weeks to rest after their journey from Braavos.
During the next phase of their travels, Sansa discovered that she was pregnant.
She gave birth to the couple's first son Eddard at Daenerys' court only a few weeks after they arrived there.
Since the journey was apparently not without it's dangers, complications and challenges, Sansa's pregnancy must have been a great source of worry for Sandor Clegane.
She writes:
"Your father's hair was raven black when we started from Pentos. When finally we arrived in Meereen, a number of strands had turned white and with every child I gave him, his head turned whiter still."
Queen Danerys, who at the time already knew she would remain childless, took to the infant immediately and - still in Essos - declared him the future Lord of Winterfell, the one who would carry the name Stark despite being born a Clegane.
This information clears a conundrum that had confounded historians for centuries.
Eddard Stark, Sansa Stark's father, had been a pivotal figure in Robert's rebellion as well as the man whose beheading started the war of the five king.
Documents mentioning the reign of a Lord Eddard Stark in Winterfell decades after the war of the five kings had therefore always lead to confusion and the question whose descendant that man might have been or if he had been a Stark at all.
The current duke of Winterfell, Anthony Stark, who can trace his bloodline all the way back to the second Eddard Stark, had gone to great expense to prove by genetic analysis, that the second Eddard Stark is genetically very close to the Starks who reigned in Winterfell before the war of the five kings.
While this answered a few questions regarding the ducal bloodline, it hadn't quite cleared up where that man had been coming from, especially since the two of the first Eddard Stark's sons, Bran and Rickon were still alive and should have inherited the title instead.
Rickon Stark, as we know now, became Lord of Skagos and Warden of the Far North by royal decree.
Another mystery Lady Elenor's chest of letters has cleared, even though the fate of Bran Stark will probably forever remain shrouded.
The next phase of Sandor and Sansa Clegane's life is part of well-recorded history. They went with Daenerys to take King's Landing and subsequently all Houses of Westeros swore allegiance to the new queen.
Winterfell was freed from Bolton's occupation, both Lord Bolton and his bastard son ending as Dragon fodder according to Sansa's account.
"I saw so many of those burned who wronged us, Littlefinger when Daenerys went to the Vale, the Boltons and many more, but I never managed to witness one single of those executions without getting violently sick.
One probably has to be a Targaryen to withstand the stench of burning flesh, because even Tyrion could not stomach it.
Your father had very early on asked the queen to be spared having to attend these affairs. He told me his pride might survive begging the queen for this favour, even give her the true reason for it, but not turning into a quivering, sobbing mess at having to witness someone being burned alive."
After the liberation of Winterfell, the Cleganes took residence there and rebuilt the castle. The family lived there until their first son came of age and got married (at the tender age of sixteen).
In Winterfell, Sansa gave birth to three more children, all of them surviving into adulthood.
The four Clegane children were:
Eddard, whom I already mentioned; Florian (clearly it had been Sansa Clegane who was in charge of picking her children's names), the letter-writing Elenor and a third son named Trystan.
Florian Clegane inherited Clegane Keep. The queen had ordained the keep to be Sandor Clegane's by right, but Sandor Clegane's opinion on this, as his wife remembers it, was as follows:
"If someone wants me back at that cursed place, he has to gag and bind me and then I'll still be putting up a fight."
So, apparently to Tyrion Lannister's great concern (he being the liege lord to any future lord of the keep), the keep and lands fell to ruin and disrepair. Tyrion Lannister must have been glad indeed when Florian Clegane claimed it when he turned eighteen, because he gave his newest bannerman his youngest daughter to wife.
Trystan Clegane, as the correspondence suggests, seemed to have been the black sheep of the four children. There was a long-standing disagreement in the family that began shortly after Elenor's marriage (when Trystan was about twelve years old).
Lady Sansa frequently complained to her daughter about the strife between father and son, but seemed clearly undecided whether or not to take sides in the conflict.
In later letters, there is no mention of any problems anymore so apparently things had been resolved at some point.
Trystan Clegane inherited the keep and lands of Moat Cailin which had been the Clegane residence ever since Eddard ruled Winterfell in his own right.
It is to Trystan Clegane historians attribute the draining of the swamps and marshes in the Neck, turning them into sprawling grazing grounds for horses and sheep.
To this day, the horses bred in the stables of the Counts of Moat Cailin are the most renowned racing horses on the continent. It is not completely unlikely that the blood of Sandor Clegane's famous steed Stranger still runs through the veins of those beautiful creatures.
Trystan also seemed to have been the first one to suggest to his eldest brother to build "The Necklace", the immense wall separating the north from the south, even if it was his great-grandson who built it.
While not needed during Daenerys' peaceful reign and long afterwards, the mighty bulwark eventually played an important role in the many conflicts that ravaged Westeros over the centuries.
To Trystane Clegane also fell the task of building the crypt (still existing today) for both his parents, where Sansa Clegane found her last resting place in her 72nd year, having outlived her husband by almost twenty years.
As she had written on the occasion of her husband's death, she devoted the rest of her life to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, some of them carrying Lord Clegane's first name.
This - at long last - is the true account of the tale of Sandor and Sansa.
I cannot adequately express how glad I am to have had the privilege to be one of the first to see these letters.
Not just because of the breakthrough in historical research, not just because of the many questions they answered, but also because it's a wonderful story of true love.
In our modern world where much too often we look at things with cynicism, pessimism and disbelief it is a heartening, an uplifting thought that even all those many years ago, even back then when life was so much harder, in times when tradition and social strictures regulated the dealings between men and women, true love not only existed, but prevailed.
