How <em>Game of Thrones</em>’ New Song ‘Jenny of Oldstones’ Was Made
It might be Westeros’s heroes’ last night alive: Time for wine, time for conversation, and time for a song. When Tyrion Lannister called for music amid a fireside chat with comrades in the latest Game of Thrones episode, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” it was the shy squire Podrick Payne who answered his call. “High in the halls of the kings who are gone,” he sang in an unexpectedly delicate, pretty voice, “Jenny would dance with her ghosts.”
Those words, from the second book of George R. R. Martin’s series, compose the opening line of “Jenny of Oldstones,” a song that’s referenced throughout the Martin saga. In Westeros history, Jenny was a common woman whom Duncan Targaryen fell in love withfall of House Targaryen). Jenny believed herself to be descended from the First Men, the ancient race who first populated the continent.
