House Frey

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

- Catelyn Stark

House Frey is 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 motto is not known at this time.

Members

 * Walder Frey, called "the Late Lord Frey", Lord of the Crossing.
 * Joyeuse Erenford, Lord Walder's eighth wife.
 * Ser Stevron Frey, Lord Walder's eldest son and heir.
 * Walder Frey, called "Black Walder", Lord Walder's greatgrandson.
 * Lothar Frey, called "Lame Lothar", Lord Walder's twelfth son.
 * Olyvar Frey, Lord Walder's eighteenth son.
 * Roslin Frey, Lord Walder's fifth daughter.
 * Waldron Frey, Walder's twenty-second son.
 * Ser Walder Rivers, Walder's eldest bastard son.
 * Numerous unidentified sons, daughters, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren both trueborn and natural.


 * Walda Frey, a grandniece of Lord Walder's.
 * Willem Frey, of unspecified relationship to the main branch.

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.

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.

The motto of House Frey has not yet been revealed, even in the first five novels.

The sigil 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).