House Frey

"The Freys have held the Crossing for 600 years, and for 600 years they have never failed to exact their toll."

- Catelyn Stark

House Frey was a vassal of House Tully of the Riverlands and holds its fealty to the Lord of Riverrun. Its current ruler is Lord Walder Frey. Their castle is known as the Twins, for its two identical keeps on either side of a river linked by a bridge, sometimes called the Stone Bridge.

The symbol of House Frey is two grey towers linked by a bridge. Their words are not known at this time.

Members

 * Walder Frey, called "the Late Lord Frey," Lord of the Crossing.
 * {Lady Perra, of House Royce}, Walder's first wife
 * {Ser Stevron}, died after the Battle of Oxcross
 * Ser Ryman, heir to the Twins
 * Ser Emmon
 * Ser Aenys
 * Perriane
 * {Lady Cyrenna, of House Swann}, Walder's second wife
 * Ser Jared
 * Septon Luceon
 * {Lady Amarei of House Crakehall}, Walder's third wife
 * Ser Hosteen
 * Lady Lythene
 * Symond
 * Ser Danwell
 * Merrett
 * {Ser Geremy}, drowned
 * Ser Raymund
 * {Lady Alyssa, of House Blackwood}, Walder's fourth wife
 * Lothar
 * Ser Jammos
 * Ser Whalen
 * Lady Morya
 * Tyta
 * {Lady Sarya of House Whent}, Walder's fifth wife, no children
 * {Lady Bethany of House Rosby}, Walder's sixth wife
 * Ser Perwyn
 * Ser Benfrey
 * Maester Willamen
 * Olyvar
 * Roslin
 * {Lady Annara of House Farring}
 * Arwyn
 * Wendel
 * Colmar
 * Waltyr
 * Elmar
 * Shirei
 * {Lady Joyeuse Erenford}, Walder's eighth wife. Killed by Catelyn Stark at the Red Wedding, no children
 * plus various grandchildren and bastards, for more details see the back of one of the books, your welcome

Lord Walder's descendants
During Robert's Rebellion, the jest was made that Lord Walder arrived late to the Battle of the Trident because he was waiting for his army to come of age...given that he had produced most of his soldiers from within his own britches (directly or indirectly through his previous children). Walder devoted the next seventeen years to making this claim a reality.

Lord Walder Frey's important descendants:


 * Ser Stevron Frey, Walder's eldest son and heir.
 * Walder Frey, called "Black Walder," Lord Walder's great-grandson.
 * Lothar Frey, called "Lame Lothar," Walder's twelfth son. Steward of the Twins, running the day-to-day operations of his father's castle.
 * Roslin Frey, Walder's fifth daughter. Married to Lord Edmure Tully.
 * Walda Frey, called "Fat Walda," Lord Walder's granddaughter. Married to Lord Roose Bolton.

Other trueborn descendants of Lord Walder Frey:


 * Olyvar Frey, Walder's eighteenth son.
 * Waldron Frey, Walder's twenty-second son.
 * Willem Frey, unspecified relationship to the main branch.
 * Derwa Frey - daughter
 * Waldra Frey - daughter
 * Shirei Frey - daughter
 * Janeya Frey - granddaughter
 * Neyela Frey - granddaughter
 * Serra Frey - granddaughter
 * Sarra Frey - granddaughter
 * Marianne Frey - granddaughter
 * Freya Frey - granddaughter
 * Merry Frey - granddaughter
 * Walda, Lord Walder's grandniece.
 * Shirei Frey, Walder's seventh - and youngest - daughter.
 * Numerous unidentified sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, numbering at least over eight score altogether.

Lord Walder Frey's bastard descendants, by various women:


 * Ser Walder Rivers, Walder's eldest bastard son.
 * Numerous unidentified bastard sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the exact number unknown even to Lord Walder himself.

Quotes
"'More Pride than Honor'; those should be the words of House Frey."

- Catelyn Stark

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, House Frey controls the Twins, two castles that hold the Crossing, the only bridge over the Green Fork of the Trident for hundreds of miles in either direction. House Frey is the northern-most house of the Riverlands, not far south of the loose border with the North, and has a history of enmity with House Reed, who control the marshes of the Neck to the north of the Twins.

House Frey was a minor house of no notability until they bridged the Green Fork six centuries ago and defending the bridge with two wooden castles. Charging wayfarers for the use of the Crossing, they grew rich and influential, replacing the castles with strong stone keeps. Their growing wealth and influence saw them gain several vassal houses of their own. Given the relatively recent rise of their House, the Freys are looked down upon by other noble Houses of the Riverlands as uncouth and honorless nouveau riche. Good nutrition has given them some length of bone, but they're no more than a few generations removed from poor white trash.

Their military strength is formidable, allowing them to raise four thousand troops by themselves - almost 10% of the total strength of the Riverlands. The current Lord Frey's father was involved in the scandal of the Whitewalls Tourney, when the Second Blackfyre Rebellion was halted in its tracks, roughly ninety years ago, leading to the current Lord Walder Frey being a cautious man, extremely reluctant to commit himself to any cause until the outcome is certain. During Robert's Rebellion he delayed the arrival of his army at the Battle of the Trident until Robert Baratheon had secured victory. For this, Lord Frey's liege, Hoster Tully, dubbed him "The Late Lord Frey", a nickname which has stuck, to Walder Frey's fury.

Little has been revealed about members of House Frey who are not descendants of Lord Walder himself. It is probable that due to his advanced age of ninety years, Walder may have simply outlived any siblings or cousins he may have had. The one minor reference to Walder's family is in the Tales of Dunk and Egg prequel novellas, which take place almost ninety years before the beginning of A Game of Thrones. Walder himself actually makes a brief appearance in the prequels as a misbehaving toddler - making him one of the only characters who are present in both the main series and the prequel novellas; Maester Aemon is about a decade older than Walder, thus he is also alive during the early prequel novellas, though he does not prominently appear (instead, his younger brother Aegon "Egg" Targaryen is a major character). Walder's father appears in the prequel but is referred to simply as "Lord Frey" without revealing what his name was. However, the prequels also reveal that Walder actually had a sister, who was about a dozen years older than him, who marries Lord Ambrose of House Butterwell, a noble House from the Crownlands. Given that the Butterwells are disgraced during the events of the prequels, it isn't clear if they died out between the prequels and the main series - no current Butterwells have been mentioned in the main series. Given the limited information, it isn't clear if Lord Walder has any surviving nieces, nephews, grand-nephews, or distant cousins from cadet branches of the main Frey line.

Despite their prominence in the storyline, the motto of House Frey has not yet been revealed, even in the first five novels.

The Heraldry of House Frey is somewhat different in the books than it is in the TV series. In the books, it is the two towers and bridge of the Twins colored blue, on a silver-grey background. The TV series made the towers white, and over the same grey field, but now above a blue escutcheon which is drawn to resemble the waves of the Green Fork of the Trident River. The color change may be because after the blue river was added as an escutcheon at the bottom, it would have been visually confusing to have the castle be the same color as the water. Unfortunately, reversing the colors like this makes it vaguely resemble the reversed colors used in heraldry by bastard children (though in such cases, without the escutcheon, the entire background field is blue, not just the escutcheon).