This came on while I was sleeping, and it made for a very interesting dream. At 16:23 when he starts talking about how it's not logical to not have a maximum human population, and how squishers farm humans, my dream took an aerial dive into the depths of Asshai, like the inside of a hollow tower, and the outer ring was all prison-like cells packed full of skeletons of humans that had burned alive in the hypothesized meteor strike. Very cool imagery.

"Forget about the moon part of it" something I never thought I'd hear on this channel 😂

What if Dawn is the ancestral sword of the Gemstone Emperors that was brought to Westeros by Amethyst Empress loyalists (Dayne ancestors) fleeing from the BSE? That has parallels (which GRRM _loves_ ) with Alyssa Velaryon taking Dark Sister in her flight from Maegor. As for the blood sacrifice I have a theory that there's a huge difference between forced blood sacrifice and sacrifices of willing subjects (which will come into the endgame imo). In YI-Tish history there's a dynasty of Eunuch Emperors who sacrifice their bits willingly upon ascension. This, again, shares narrative parallels with Varys, arguably the shadow babies and the general theme of magic powered by life/ reproductive essences/child-birth etc. being extremely powerful (although these are all part of the "dark" iteration of blood magic). Perhaps this willing sacrifice of "bits/essence etc." could be a throwback to a different, less malign version of blood magic as opposed to the BSE and the following Valyrian's concept of blood magic, that seems extremely malign with Valyrian steel consuming light in juxtaposition to Dawn that seems to refract it being an example of this difference. Also has possible parallels with the Others. If they are, say, the spirits of those exiled from the WWN who are created from willing sacrifices to become soldiers/weapons against the invaders of the WWN that pushed them out. Dawn and The Others *do* share noted physical similarities... Maybe I'm lost in the sauce but I really appreciate your work and the ones with Tim are always fantastic (Anyone reading go subscribe to his channel). I really wouldn't have thought much about this series without your work. Take care of yourselves everybody!

On the most commonly shared ASOIAF map, Ulthos is shown to be extremely dense in the shade of the evening trees. Interestingly, a short distance from Ashai.

Bless Tim, don't worry man, easy mistake to make if you're not overly familiar with AI images. I'm an artist myself and have managed to learn to spot AI pieces now but they still occasionally catch me out. Some things to look for to spot AI imagery - Odd looking eyes and fingers, scenes and environments that have points where 'physics' seem to be broken (clouds below horizon lines etc), and oft times they'll be very painterly in style. Most importantly, Great stream as always fellas - Thank you. Really like hearing the back and forth of conversation between you both, you're enthusiasm really draws the listener in and makes me realise that my bookshelf is in need of a few more novels...

We need a Grey King stream based off of your original Grey King symbolism. I like to go and listen to your first few video essays. The Grey King was some of the most compelling.

The name Yi Ti seems to me like a reference to the Yuan-ti from Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk lore, who are snake/human hybrids created in blood rituals. Some of the stuff in Leng reminds me of them: - they live underground - mostly live in the jungle - big yellow eyes because they’re sneks - darkvision - xenophobic and suspicious (“kill all the foreigners”) The yuan-ti often inhabit the remains of the cities of ancient fallen civilisations, so if GRRM is imaging snake-people currently living in the jungles of Leng, it would imply they were not the original builders of those cities One of the popular yuan-ti religions attempts to awaken a sleeping ancient god, which I believe to be a Lovecraft reference. Another sect work to unleash a primordial serpent who is destined to devour the Sun and plunge the world into eternal darkness, which links them with the Long Night as well

I'd really love to see an animated series about the Empire of the Dawn and the lands and peoples of Essos. Even Jaenara Belaerys flying over Sothoryos.

Evidence-free theory: if the Children were once plentiful across Essos, that implies that weirwood trees were too. Then the Long Night meteor strikes happen and a contamination starts to spread through the Essos weirwoods (presumably starting in The Shadow) which kills most of them but in a minority of cases (with or without human/magical help) transforms them into Shade Of The Evening trees, which only survive in a few places. However the same meteor strikes also sever the Arm Of Dorne, thus saving the Westeros weirwoods from the same fate. Then later, during or immediately after The Long Night, Great Empire survivors and/or Lenghi arrive in Westeros looking for the surviving trees. In other words, this has the _effect_ of saving the Westeros weirwoods by cutting The Arm Of Dorne, but it doesn't need The Children to proactively do it.

I had never read a ASOIAF book until I came across David's videos. Phenomenal content. You and Quinn are the fantasy GOATS.

Thank you for continuing to make great ASOIAF content. I barely noticed the squishes on my first read through, but I’m more and more convinced they are off the coast of everywhere in planetos. There are so many layers and nuances to GRRM’s work.

"The dragon must have three heads" - the comet and moon meteors are refered to as dragons - 3 impact sites around the world - could they have been West to East, long ago; 1st on the Iron Islands, then at the Hammer of the Waters and finally at Asshai. I'm unsure how much time is possible between these three dragon head landings, but just something I was thinking on this evening, during the stream. Thanks for the great content per usual @greywastetim and @David"Don'tCallMeLML"theDragon; excellent stream and always love this topic.

Please leave a like and a comment to support David and Tim. This is some of the most interesting ASOIAF content on UTube

Weird thoughts by a biologist: What if the Old Ones/Green Men are the ancestors of both giants and children who split up to occupy different ecological niches in Westeros?

Asshai and Leng is the kind of content I'm here for.

I maybe found another Sun King. The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the main god of that island - Apollo and literally Theos Helios, the embodiment of the sun. Both were worshipped in parallel. And this is the inspiration behind the Braavos Titan

These discussions are absolutely feeding my love for history and mythology and now I want to binge documentaries on the Celtic pantheon. Also I love, LOVE how you guys address the fact that any giant empire is going to be multi-racial and multi-ethnic and point out China being aware of the Roman Empire and Rome being aware of China as a real world example. (And thank both you and Tim for your stance and comments on ai 'art'. I don't want to go into a tangent about it, but it just really means a lot to hear the harm ai 'art' does to artists, being addressed in more fandom spaces. You guys are awesome! )

Another fabulous stream. Between being an old theater kid myself and praising Garth for my adhd, watching David Lightbringer and Grey Waste Tim together is like hanging out with the coolest voices in my head.

David, my dad is an old Blues Bassist who used to watch Reading Rainbow with me when I was a young mermaid. I am desperate to send him your Reading Rhaegar cover! I need a viiiiid! 😂

just went through huge trauma and i just want to thank you both for what you do for us.

My mind was blown multiple times throughout this stream🤯

around 1:30:00 when you guys were talking about weirwoods existing in the far east of essos, that immediately bridged with david's idea of azor ahai corruption/inflitration of the weirnet, if the long night started /was fought mostly in essos then finished in westeros - that COULD mean the others would use the weirnet as some sort of gate to go from continent to continent. it could be that during/after the long night the weirwoods (in my mind they were and will always be extremely creepy), were simply cut down mercilessly because the enemy (others/azor ahai) used them to wage war on the whole world; if the pact of the gods eye between the children and first men was in fact the end of the long night, one of the conditions could be about not cutting down the rest of the weirwoods.

You guys complement each other very well! And the live hosted by the pair of you has nice dynamics. Thanks so much for the great content!

Regarding weirwoods not being in essos. We actually get second hand information that hints at something very similar to them existing in the east. "The fabled Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, was the first Westerosi to visit these woods. After his return from the Thousand Islands, he wrote of carved trees, haunted grottoes, and strange silences." - The World Of Ice And Fire

Freehold, as in "The Freehold of Valyria" is a term that exists as an opposite to leasehold. The land that became known as Valyria was probably granted by decree prior to the fall of the Great Empire. Otherwise, I don't see why you wouldn't just call it Valyria or the "Nation of Valyria," "Kingdom of Valyria," something like that if you were just settling new territory, especially considering they were establishing a slave state

"It'd be like if Zeus decided to bang an octopus, which he is wont to do..." CHEFS KISS TIM HILARIOUS

We need MORE 3 hour David and Tim streams!

Nissa Nissa is a strange name, we've only see one (hehe) other person with a similar one. That's right, Wun Wun the Giant. Nissa Nissa was a Giantess.

2:29:27 i just noticed that Stannis changed his sigil in a similar way that bittersteel changed his sigil. Goes from a stag to a firey stag, goes from a bracken horse to a firey horse. Is this astronomy or burning tree?

All these asoiaf spin off shows and I jus want a EotD/Asshai super prequel

Fun stream gentlemen! 😃 I also fear the superfruit invasion.

Love that George made it apparent that Asshai and the whole region went through a magical apocalypse, due in part to a world ending war. It has the after effects of something similar to radiation. He's made cyclical periods of upheaval a regular thing in his world. There's even periods of golden ages of discovery that civilizations go through like bronze age, iron age, and even valyerian steel age, hell even a dragon age, or black oily stone age. That different sentient races had their own age of glory or discovery and a cataclysmic end.

Joined the live late. Love listening to discussions on the more obscure topics of ASoIaF

Maybe Stygai the Corpse City is like Yeen where it was built by the Squishers except Stygai had actual civilizations like Asshai/the GEotD arise around it, whereas Yeen really only has the Basilisk Isles relatively close-by, thus earning the Corpse City name in relation to how nothing complex lives there. It was like Yeen at first in that the city itself was just cursed, but I believe that after the Moon Meteors, either a huge chunk hit Stygai and spread the magical corruption of the Corpse City all over the peninsula, destroyed the ecosystem, and turned the rocks oily black, or a chunk was moved to Stygai by the Bloodstone Emperor/Night's King and he used evil magics to somehow enhance the corruption from the meteor which spread to the rest of the peninsula, same end result. I kind of prefer the idea that Stygai was hit by a chunk of Moon Meteor which spread the Squishers' magical corruption of Stygai everywhere. This Squisher magic is what created the Oily Black Stone at first, but the Moon Meteors spread the corruption in a way the Squishers had never been able to, kinda like the magic itself mutated or evolved in response to ASoIaF space materials. The main thing that makes me think Stygai was a Squisher city is that a river leads down to the sea from it, and that the river seems to be even more horribly corrupted than Asshai itself, almost radioactive or toxic in an alien way, like it was targetted maybe. Perhaps the Squishers' magic is part of the reason that the moon was destroyed. 3 heads of the dragon there shall be, maybe the BE/NK tried to break into the Weirwood Net, cast a powerful Squisher spell or try to recreate one, AND created either dragons, the precursor Valyrian Steel that Dawn and I think some other weapons are made out of, or both at the same time. This moshpit of magic caused an absolutely gigantic cataclysm greater than the Doom of Valyria, where I believe the very orbits of the moons or Planetos were altered, leading to the moons colliding or bouncing off each other and causing the Moon Meteors to rain down on Planetos. The Arm of Dorne, the Iron Isles, the Thousand Islands, and I believe the Summer Islands as well, were hit by chunks of Moon Meteor, shattering entire landmasses. There was massive flooding from the Narrow Sea meeting the Summer Seas which led to the Neck and other swampy or suspect places being filled with water somehow, maybe smaller meteors. This cataclysm caused enormous amounts of ash, dust, and debris to block out the sun and caused the Long Night. After this is when the Others first appeared, whether they are direct descendants of the Night's King or were created by the Children of the Forest or whatever they truly are, I believe they came to either destroy Azor Ahai, or be lead by Azor Ahai

My current hypothesis: the Great Empire of the Dawn SACRIFICED Asshai to create energy for their generation of new beasts: DRAGONS!

I hate that I miss so many livestreams, but thanks for always making quality content, and as usual, LOVE having Tim on. Always a pleasure gentleman.

Really love hearing Tim's Lovecrafty input! ❤

Amongst the treasures that Gilbert Farwind offers at the Kibgsmoot are a horn and an accompanying armband. I think they maintained Great Empire horn/armband technology

Zeus banging an Octopus is the kind of discourse this fandom needs more of.

Gonna catch this later! Can't wait to hear the latest collaboration with our Grey boy Timmy!!

Once again, great stream! Thank you David and Tim!

I'm about halfway through rewatching this masterpiece of a livestream, but I just have to point out that George has an absolutely wonderful gift of weaving Lovecraft's ideas into his stories but not Lovecraft's xenophobia/racism that formed those ideas. The Black Goat is worshipped somewhere in northwestern Essos but the real Lovecraft name isn't actually used, and those who are descended from Squishers in ASoIaF really are fishy people instead of in Lovecraft where I believe they are supposed to be based on Asians

I’ve been catching up on/rewatching your videos the last couple of days. I especially love anything GEotD related. It got me thinking that Huzhor Amai being the son of the last of the Fisher Queens might be a hint as to why the Amethyst Empress initially succeeded the Opal Emperor instead of the Bloodstone Emperor. Given that the Bloodstone Emperor/Azor Ahai/Huzhor Amai are most likely the same person/a monomyth based on the same person, then maybe the Opal Emperor married a Fisher Queen. The matriarchal nature of the Fisher Queens might have led to a change in the GEotD line of succession to include daughters or at least influenced the Opal Emperor to name their elder daughter (Amethyst Empress) as his heir, ahead of their younger son (Bloodstone Emperor).

Been enjoying some of your videos recently after hearing some legend named Alt Schwift X mention your theories

Personally, I think these kind of topics are your best stuff. Everything you do is excellent entertainment, I just have some issues with a couple of your foundational theories. Makes it hard for me to buy in very much to things built upon those theories. But this stuff? I really think you've hit the nail on the head way more often than not! Hopefully we will find out eventually, but I'll be supporting along the way even if we're both wrong!

I love how deep you guys dive on SOIAF lore…. lol

Thank you for all your work. Love spending my weekend with you guys❤

Looking forward to your new years stream! So happy I won't be alone this year 🎉

Also, given that the far Eastern Essos cultures are based on far-east Asian cultures, the Greek 'titans' come from proto-Aryan religion that is also found in Hinduism and Buddhism - war between Asuras and Devas.

Loved this one :) And the chat was fire too

You guys work so well together!!! 👏 ❤

Love your content. Much appreciated. By the way, you guys rock.

@50:20 I swear to the old gods and the new to watch your Ironborn videos!

Loved it so much I had to listen again today!

new fan of both of yours! subscribed and notified!

These horned men of Leng reminded me of my first hours in theatre studies. The class read a play where satyrs show up. And our teacher asked: What is the most typical feature of a satyr? Not the horns - it´s the phallus!

I think the Qartheen myth of the second moon exploding and releasing dragons is a huge point towards the asteroid hit theory and explains the shift of the dragonlords from the GEOTD to Valyria, the moon shattering and sending down the bloodstone asteroids causing the long night resulting in the dragons and their dragonlords migrating west potentially or bringing the arcane knowledge of how to tame dragons west which became shifted over the millenia to become that it brought forth dragons.

Great stream! 💚Deep lore is always a great discussion

Love your live streams and videos!

I confirm that the color shift that depends on the angle is called "iridescence".

Planetos was visited by otherworldly beings from time to time. The Red Comet might be one of the space objects that one of these beings hail from. Everytime the Red Comet appears, magic is heightened. The Deep Ones probably colonized the riverside and coastal areas of Planetos and created new species by interracial breeding and built structures like Yin, Moat Cailin, Seastone Throne of Iron Islands. Green Men, also referred as Old Ones, nature people who created their own races and empires and built cities such as Leng, Stygai or even Carcosa where they performed horrific acts of magic & sorcery. These people may had the ability to connect to stellar objects such as meteors and the moons of Planetos. Since arrival they have been in conflict with each other. Deep Ones and Green Men also had a great war and Green Men such as Grey King/Weirwood King marrying mermaids seems like a Marriage Pact. I believe Asshai is the only city which was built by the GEOTD as the capital and it was made of normal stones till the Cursed Meteor of BSE made it a nuclear fallout zone like Chernobyl and poisoned everything. The Golden Empire's first ruler was the God-on-Earth, the only son of the Lion of Night (Moon King) and the Maiden-Made-of-Light (Solar Queen), who ruled for 10000 years. Dominion passed to his eldest son, the Pearl Emperor who ruled for 1000 years. The Five Forts are believed by some to have been built by the Pearl Emperor to defend against The Demons of The Lion of Night. It was the first time The Demons of The Lion of Night appeared but why??? To me it feels like after God-on-Earth died or went back to the stars, his children who are of different species fought against each other till the Pearl Emperor took control over GEOTD. Maybe the First men fought the Old Ones and the Old Ones called/created the army of The Demons of The Lion of Night. Garth Greenhand appears in Westeros, planted weirwoods and created children possessing his magical traits through interracial breeding. Maybe he was one of the Old Ones of Leng who was defeated by God-on-Earth or the Pearl Emperor and banished from the GEOTD. Garth The Green sets up shop in The Reach and his children were the first kings of Westeros. At the same time others from the GEOTD also visited Westeros such as Iron Islanders or Lan the Clever, as well as Daynes and Hightowers. LIGHTBRINGER = NIGHTBRINGER Dragons Meteor Swords Greenseer Magic and control of Weirwood Hivemind I like Dave’s idea that GEOTD kings were able to make meteor swords in the past and I believe that there were multiple swords of pale fire and BSE wanted to make one of his own as he rejected every God & their creation that came before him. He needed his own meteor sword with magical powers which would make him the new God-on-Earth. He worshiped a black stone that fell from the sky. Maybe he wanted more of this meteor so he tried all kinds of blood sacrifice and dark sorcery or Weirwood magic to call down the stars and meteors. All the previous pale fire swords were lost during the Long Night. BloodStone Emperor, brother of the Amethyst Empress usurps her. He married a Tiger woman, probably the Princess of Leng who was also a God Empress and possibly a Green Woman. However I feel that BSE had multiple wives of different races and some of them were pregnant. Maybe BSE collected all the magical special people from every living race in the known old and brought them to Westeros and performed a massive blood sacrifice to invade the Weirwood and gain greenseer magic. Weirwoods are the most unique thing about Westeros and Arm of Dorne was still intact so they had to come to Westeros to perform the horrific mass blood sacrifice to gain the otherworldly magic. Kinslaying Amethyst Empress, the rightful Queen of GEOTD was the first Blood Betrayal. He rivaled & usurped the chosen First Queen and got cursed. He grew gray and corpselike. BSE becomes the Gray King who sits on Naga’s Bones which is a reference to the Weirwood Throne. Maybe he becomes one with the Weirwood tree at the heart of winter. The shattered pieces of the Moon fell on earth as Dragons / Fire of the Gods causing death & destruction.. The Demons of the Lion of Night were probably the army of The Old Ones similar like The Others are said to be the champion snow knights of the COTF however it is more likely that they were the creation of Green Men against BSE. The Demons of the Lion of Night invaded & wrecked GEOTD as the Wrath of Gods for the Blood Betrayal. The Others invade Westeros. The Long Night begins.

I was hoping to catch this live. KZfaq at the time as 10pm, sorry I missed it.

I missed a few streams so now I’ve got a marathon of lml content to binge!

Wow I can see the inspiration for Bloodborne is all over this. The people who built the labyrinths underground for thousands of years and had bloodlust. And to serve the Great Ones as called in game. Also all the abominable experiments on the people above to ascend. This stream made me understanding Elden Ring so much! Makes sense since George RR Martin wrote the mythos for the story and world building. There’s a place called Caelid that perfectly resembles Asshai. Also all the outer gods creating chaos in the game. And the long night would be the shattering in Elden Ring. Basically the game takes place in the aftermath 5000 years after the shattering which was caused by the night of the black knives. A Demi god is killed. And a lot of meteors and falling stars that bring outer gods influencing the lands. Great game great story telling. So George RR Martin created a video game and it’s called Elden Ring. David I’m sure you’d love it :)

Great stream as always👍

love when tim joins, thanks you homies for such delicious content! praise garth

Amazing stream. I absolutely love environmental world story telling.

Love a good long video. I’m half way through and I got a lot of kitchen prep done. The 2nd half will carry me through cleanup.

The potential dragon under Winterfell could've hatched and grown by eating Stark corpses only for it to become trapped in the collapsed section and then die/hybernate.

another amazing stream both of you rock

I was having a rough day at work till I saw you uploaded. Your great content helps me make it through some grueling long hours. I don't know if you realize how you effect people's lives but l would like to thank you

Plot twist: Asshai is just Manhattan. Literally just Manhattan. The oily black stone is just skyscrapers, it’s always dark because the timeline difference, and there are no children, because it’s night. The magic being practiced in the open are just people using their phones

Hello David, firstly I wanted to thank you for this incredible video, which allows us to better understand the world of chronicles, and which helped me formulate some theories about the history of this world, some of which may not make sense and are just nonsense in my head, or maybe you I've already talked about them in a video on the channel that I haven't seen yet, I hope I can help a little. 1 perhaps the great empire of dawn did not have dragons at its beginning, but rather they were firebenders, this would explain the various associations of the ironborn, Lannisters, Baratheon and the meadow with the control of fire and not with dragons, I believe that dragons they were created by the bloodstone emperor from the crossing of wyverns and fire worms and the use of blood magic and alchemy, the Valyrians could even have dragon blood and were created from alchemy, which would also serve to explain As the divine emperors and other figures of that time lived so long, the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, the people of Asshai today could use some of this alchemical knowledge to transform metal into gold and use it in trade. (I had other theories but this comment is getting too long, I hope you liked it).

Very interesting topic. Thanks

Are you going to talk about Patchface in the Ironborn triology, since he is pretty clearly linked to the drowned god

Another amazing stream!

I'm just here to to leave a comment because I'm obsessed with Ur channel

I've just read the mountains of madness and no lie the elder ones are sooooo creepy. The description of them is nightmare fuel 😂

First off, thank you for the wonderful content. I watch and listen as often as possible. I'm curious if maybe the comet/meteorite is the source of magical power? Maesters said the planet once may have had regular seasons, what if the appearance of the comet set in motion the series of events that would not only put magic in the world, but put so much magic in as to cause a cataclysm. Or maybe the comets come from a magically charged planet that was destroyed. Sorry fo the long comment.

Good stuff!

Since watching the show when it first aired on HBO, I've always been curious about Asshai. I looked it up because I love magic and mystery, only to find little to nothing about it. Then I find this. Fuck yes!!

Watching from the future…wish I could have mentioned: if Planetos did have 2 moons and one was destroyed, it would effect the seasons ☄️

If you want to learn about the Color Out of Space for more context the movie annihilation from 2017 is very close and a great movie. Also horrorbabble and the avian library each did readings of the story, it’s not that long.

I am gonna go work on the "shade of the evening is an infection that effects weirwoods" theory rn.

Although, there have also been points of inspiration for Yi Ti from ancient India, e.g. the absurd number and size of ancient ruins.

Grey eyes are basically the blue version of hazel, so a color shift like that can actually just be a trick of the light

Everybody is talking about the meteorite, but nobody is talking about meteo wrong.

re: shade trees only being in Qarth! Disputed Lands’ first video talks about this and I’m not sure how close this would be, but the topic at that point was the Essosi cousins of the COTF who were basically wiped out when the (hairy men?) clear cut their forests for farmland. It wasn’t, say, right across from Dorne, but it was definitely much much further West and North than Qarth (edit: immediately south of Ibb). And it was a LONG time ago, I don’t remember if it was pre-long night or no. She also mentions that some of the trees are reported to have been carved 👀👀 (Sorry for these half-remembered thoughts comments, if I look up everything it’ll be an hour from now and I’ll have lost the thread.)

Yes! Another good one!

Don't even know why, but i'm looking forward to this channel getting 100k subscribers

The Watery Halls could be a flooded weirwood cave, were the Gray King sits his weirwood/driftwood throne, with fish nibbling at his face.

52:00 "Sea birds, mate. Sea birds."

I thought the same thing about the meteor from Colour Out of Space. The colors shift and shimmer like oil on a puddle.

Can someone help. David mentioned in a previous video about being a guest on another channel to discuss Tolkien. Anyone know where to find the video?

1:22 - if you've ever seen a very determined bantam rooster mount a Brahma hen, or a chihuahua try it out on a great dane, you'd know acrobatics.

@David Lightbringer I've listened to all Danny's chapters an luv the House of The Undieing where do we hear about the" kingly ghosts " she see's men in wizard hat's so I'm confused can you plz help me LML fan

The comet's orbit - it's cyclical and parts of the comet (its tail, maybe) hits the moon every however many years, causing meteorites to pelt the planet from the moon. So the comet's fiery tail IS a sword of sorts

I can’t help but wonder if Asshai wasn’t built with regular stone and the wood of shade of the evening trees - or whatever they might have been before they were corrupted? (If the weirwoods were, then the shade trees probably were too, right?)

Perhaps an odd idea but what if the ghost grass is the former inhabitants of the region transformed in some cataclysmic event? Six feet tall, glowing with the souls of the damned etc etc

Hey! as an Ibbenese- American, i resent that remark! I think the Ibbenese, being whalers from the north, are referencing rhe Basques, who live in the Northeast of Iberia on the Bay of Biscay and are known for being hairy, willing to fight whales on a rowboat, and have trouble interbreeding with others. For reference, Basques are (and especially were) more likely than others to be RH negative. in a tine before blood typing, you end up with Basque men more likely able to have children with non-Basque (likely RH +) women, whereas Basque women were likely to only be able to carry fully to term one child by a non-Basque (again, probably RH+) man. The subsequent children would likely not live to term. I'm RH- (and Basque, Gora Euskadi!), and had to get the special shots to be able to have multiple children with my RH+ husband. Then you get ideas like Basques being not entirely human, being some sort of infertile crossbreed like rules, etc.