Circumventing the Wall: Over it, Around it, Beneath it or Through it

In this post I thought it would be fun to discuss the different ways to bypass the Wall that Wildlings have used over the years and that several of our characters could use in the future.

"It's made of ice," Jon pointed out.

"You know nothing, Jon Snow. This wall is made o' blood." -ASOS, Jon IV

If interested: The Wildling Invasions: Timelines, Thoughts and Theories

Background

Yesterday while posting about a potential twist on "Hold the Door", it got me thinking about the different ways that someone might accomplish this and it really varies by the type of group you are with. An experienced climber can climb, but children, etc. would have to use a gate.

The Wall defends itself, Jon thought as he pulled Ygritte back to her feet. -ASOS, Jon IV

Note: Some of these examples are only stories/legends

Over it

As we see in the series raiders often climb over the Wall (RIP Jarl):

The Others take them all, thought Jon, as he watched them scramble up the steep slope of the ridge and vanish beneath the trees. It would not be the first time wildlings had scaled the Wall, not even the hundred and first. The patrols stumbled on climbers two or three times a year, and rangers sometimes came on the broken corpses of those who had fallen. -ASOS, Jon IV

• Fun Fact: Jon doesn't really climb the Wall in the books (a rope ladder is thrown down for him) as he previously had a pretty intense climbing scene in the Frostfangs in ACOK

The Wall was too big to be stormed by any conventional means; too high for ladders or siege towers, too thick for battering rams. No catapult could throw a stone large enough to breach it, and if you tried to set it on fire, the icemelt would quench the flames. You could climb over, as the raiders did near Greyguard, but only if you were strong and fit and sure-handed, and even then you might end up like Jarl, impaled on a tree. They must take the gate, or they cannot pass. -ASOS, Jon VIII

and:

the only way to defeat the Wall was to go over it, and many a raider had. Fewer come back, though, he thought with a certain grim pride. Climbers must of necessity leave their mounts behind, and many younger, greener raiders began by taking the first horses they found. Then a hue and cry would go up, ravens would fly, and as often as not the Night's Watch would hunt them down and hang them before they could get back with their plunder and stolen women. -ASOS, Jon IV

but at one point with Raymun Redbeart:

The last King-Beyond-the-Wall to cross the Wall was Raymun Redbeard, who brought the wildlings together in 212 or 213 AC. It was not until 226 AC that he and the wildlings would breach the Wall by climbing in their hundreds and thousands up the slick ice and down the other side.

Raymun's host numbered in the thousands, by all accounts, and they fought their way as far south as Long Lake. There, Lord Willam Stark and the Drunken Giant, Lord Harmond of House Umber, brought their armies against them. With two hosts surrounding him, and the lake to his back, Redbeard fought and died, but not before slaying Lord Willam. -TWOIAF, The Wall and Beyond : The Wildlings

Around It

The Bay of Seals and the Gorge are used to the East/West respectively:

Along the east coast the raiders most often built boats to slip across the Bay of Seals. In the west they would descend into the black depths of the Gorge to make their way around the Shadow Tower.

an:

Is it possible to circumvent the Wall to the West with an army?

GRRM: No, the mountains and a deep river gorge make the terrain impassable for all but small groups of raiders. -SSM, Many Questions: 28 Dec 1998

Beneath It (Gorne's Way)

There is also a legendary way under the Wall (that some people theorize links with the Cave of the Last Greenseer, but not the point of the post):

"You know nothing, Jon Snow. It went on and on and on. There are hundreds o' caves in these hills, and down deep they all connect. There's even a way under your Wall. Gorne's Way."

"Gorne," said Jon. "Gorne was King-beyond-the-Wall."

"Aye," said Ygritte. "Together with his brother Gendel, three thousand years ago. They led a host o' free folk through the caves, and the Watch was none the wiser. But when they come out, the wolves o' Winterfell fell upon them."

"There was a battle," Jon recalled. "Gorne slew the King in the North, but his son picked up his banner and took the crown from his head, and cut down Gorne in turn." -ASOS, Jon III

and:

The brothers Gendel and Gorne were joint kings three thousand years ago. Leading their host down beneath the earth into a labyrinth of twisting subterranean caverns, they passed beneath the Wall unseen to attack the North. Gorne slew the Stark king in battle, then was killed in turn by the king's heir, and Gendel and his remaining wildlings fled back to their caverns, never to been seen again.

and:

Among the wildlings, it is said that Gendel and his people became lost and trapped in the caverns and still wander there today. Among the histories of the rangers, however, it is said that Gendel was slain as well, and that only a handful of his followers lived to flee back into the ground. -TWOIAF, The Wall and Beyond: The Wildlings

Through It

• Arson Iceaxe

The legendary tale of Arson Iceaxe:

Arson Iceaxe had been halfway through the Wall when his tunnel was found by rangers from the Nightfort. They did not trouble to disturb him at his digging, only sealed the way behind with ice and stone and snow. Dolorous Edd used to say that if you pressed your ear flat to the Wall, you could still hear Arson chipping away with his axe. -ASOS, Jon III

• Assaulting a Gate

We see this happen in the main series, which only has 3 open castles at the start of the series. Jon later regarrisons many of the castles.

If interested: All In All, It's Just Another Castle on the Wall & The Castle Black Plotline in TWoW

"Magic" It

• The Horn of Joramun

The Horn of Joramun is claimed to be able to bring down the Wall:

The threat posed to the realm by these savage peoples can safely be discounted, save for the times, once in a great while, when they united beneath the leadership of a king-beyond-the- Wall. Though many wildling raiders and war chiefs have aspired to this title, few have ever achieved it. None of the wildlings who have risen up to become King-Beyond-the-Wall have done aught to build a true kingdom or care for their people; in truth, such men are warlords, not monarchs, and though elsewise much different one from the other, each has led his peoples against the Wall, in hopes of breaching it and conquering the Seven Kingdoms to the south.

The first King-Beyond-the-Wall, according to legend, was Joramun, who claimed to have a horn that would bring down the Wall when it woke "the giants from the earth." (That the Wall still stands says something of his claim, and perhaps even of his existence.) -TWOIAF, The Wall and Beyond: The Wildlings

• The Horned Lord

Little is known about the Horned Lord but he used sorcery to pass the Wall:

The Horned Lord would follow them, a thousand years after (or perhaps two). His name is lost to history, but he was said to have used sorcery to pass the Wall. .

If interested: The Horned Lord, The Green Men & Sorcery & All Magic Has a Cost: A Focus on the Weirwoods/"Northern Magic"

• The Black Gate

A gate in the Nightfort that is only accessible by a brother of the Night's Watch:

"How did you get through the Wall?" Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. "Does the well lead to an underground river, is that where you came from? You're not even wet . . ."

"There's a gate," said fat Sam. "A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself. The Black Gate, he called it."

If interested: The Black Gate: Past/Present/Future

TLDR: A quick list of different ways to get around wall and some of the attempts that have been made doing so.