Qhorin's scouting party, consisting of Jon, Ebben, Stonesnake, and Squire Dalbridge are navigating the Skirling Pass. They see a fire above from wildling sentries. Stonesnake and Jon prepare to climb up to take care of them. Jon leaves Ghost behind with the others. After a long and torturous climb, they end up above the wildlings. There are three of them. One is feeding the fire, another is watching the pass, and a third is asleep. Stonesnake and Jon each mark their man and leap into action. They each kill their target as the third wildling stirs.¹ Jon loses Longclaw in the fight, so he lunges quickly at the other wildling and realizes she is a woman. Instead of killing her, he forces her to yield and takes her prisoner over Stonesnake's objections. She gives her name as Ygritte. Stonesnake interrogates her some, and when she learns that Jon is a Stark bastard, she tells the legend of Bael the Bard. Before becoming King-beyond-the-Wall, Bael was a feared raider.  The Stark in Winterfell at the time wanted his head, but could never find him and so labeled him a coward.  Bael came to play for him and did so so beautifully that he was allowed to request a reward.  Bael wanted only a winter rose, which he received.  The next morning, the singer and the lord's maiden daughter had vanished, with only a blue rose on the maiden's bed.  No sign was found for almost a year, until one night, the maid was back in her room with a babe at her breast.  She had fallen in love with Bael and had borne him a son while they hid in the crypts of the castle.  The song ends there, but another story says that thirty years later Bael, now king, led his people south to breach the Wall, but was slain by the young Lord Stark that was supposedly his son.  The young Stark's mother supposedly threw herself off a tower in grief when she saw Bael's head mounted on a spear, and the young lord was soon after flayed by one of his own lords who wore his skin as a cloak.²  The next day, Stonesnake and Jon reunite with the rest of the group. When the others see Ygritte, they say she must die. Qhorin says that Jon should do the deed since she yielded to him and tells the others it will be easier for him to do it if they do not watch. When the others leave, Jon lets her go.