Sir Duncan the Tall
Welcome back to Liandrug, lore-lovers. Tonight, we're not following kings on thrones or dragons in the sky... we're following a man who started with nothing but his fists, a borrowed name, and a battered dream.
Opening
They called him Dunk in the slums of Flea Bottom. History remembers him as Ser Duncan the Tall, a hedge knight who walked into the storm of Targaryen politics... and somehow came out the other side as the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
The Chronicle
Duncan was nearly seven feet tall, an inch short, they say, broad-shouldered, hard as old oak, with shaggy hair sun-streaked in summer, and later a dagger scar cut into his cheek. But if you think his size is what made him legendary... you're only seeing the armor, not the man inside it.
Because Dunk carried something rarer than strength: A stubborn, bruised kind of honor, the kind that doesn't come from castles... the kind you learn when you grow up hungry and unwanted, and you swear to yourself that if you ever become strong, you'll never use it to crush the weak.
His earliest memories were the streets of King's Landing, Flea Bottom's mud and rot, where children survived by being quick, mean, and lucky. He ran with other street rats, Ferret, Rafe, Pudding, selling scraps of questionable meat to pot shops, laughing like "little monsters," with Dunk admitting he was the worst of them.
He never knew his parents. He wondered if he might be a bastard. He imagined his father might've been a criminal... and he even daydreamed of going north to the Wall one day, hoping to find some tall old man who looked like him, some clue that he hadn't appeared in the world by accident.
And then, one day, a hedge knight found him.
Ser Arlan of Pennytree took the boy as a squire when Dunk was around five or six, caught him chasing a pig, and decided this giant child was worth saving. They wandered the Seven Kingdoms together for years, never rich, never celebrated, but always moving. Dunk learned what knights were supposed to be. And Ser Arlan had a way of teasing him that Dunk never forgot: "Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall."
Dunk believed it too. He thought of himself as slow, thick-headed, more brawn than brain. But sometimes, the "thick" ones are the hardest to bend. And Dunk had a dream, simple, impossible: One day... the Kingsguard. Then came the road to Ashford.
In 209 AC, Ser Arlan died on the way to the tourney at Ashford. Dunk buried him himself, alone, with no songs, no banners... just dirt and grief. And then Dunk did something reckless: He went to the tourney anyway.
On the road, a bald boy begged to be his squire. Dunk refused at first, because who would trust a child in a world of lances and steel? But the boy followed him. And when the boy assumed "Dunk" was short for "Duncan," Dunk accepted the lie because it sounded stronger.
Ser Duncan the Tall. That night, beneath an elm tree, Dunk saw a green shooting star fall across the sky, an omen, he decided. A bit of luck thrown down to a nobody who desperately needed it.
That falling star became his sigil: a green shooting star above an elm tree at sunset. And the bald boy? He called himself Egg, and Dunk thought he was just another Flea Bottom orphan. He wasn't. Egg was a Targaryen prince.
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At Ashford, Dunk met high lords, royal princes, and the ugly truth behind chivalry. When a puppeteer named Tanselle was attacked by Prince Aerion Targaryen, Dunk stepped in. He protected her, because his vows meant something, even if the world laughed at them. And for that... Dunk struck a prince.
That should've been his death sentence. Instead, the world cracked open into legend: Aerion demanded a Trial of Seven, seven champions against seven, judgment by blood and steel. Dunk found allies, knights and lords willing to stand beside a hedge knight because what he did was right.
And when the dust settled, Dunk beat Aerion, forcing him to yield. But victory tasted like ash. Men died. Good men. And Prince Baelor Breakspear, one of the finest of his line, was mortally wounded in the chaos. Dunk walked away free... and guilty. Yet that day bound him to Egg's family forever. Prince Maekar offered Dunk a place at court, so Egg could remain his squire.
Dunk refused to become some polished knight of the castle. He stayed a hedge knight on purpose. Because he wanted Egg to learn humility on the road. And so the true story begins: Dunk and Egg.
They went south into Dorne, crossed deserts, lost horses, rode double when they had to. Dunk fought raiders at sea on the way to Oldtown, his first taste of battle beyond tourney fields. In Oldtown, Egg's brother Aemon measured Dunk and confirmed the rumor: almost seven feet tall. Dunk was becoming famous... even if he didn't understand why anyone would care. Because Dunk still thought of himself as a Flea Bottom lunk wearing armor he barely deserved.
Eventually, Dunk and Egg took service with Ser Eustace Osgrey at Standfast, old, broke, and stuck in the ashes of the Blackfyre rebellions. Here, Dunk met Rohanne Webber, Lady of Coldmoat, sharp, proud, dangerous in a way tourney knights never are.
A feud grew. Levies gathered. A petty conflict became a real war for poor men with pitchforks. Dunk tried to stop it. And when he couldn't, he did what he always does: He stepped in front of the blade. He took the blame for violence to prevent more blood. He fought as champion. And he won, barely, wounded so badly he nearly drowned afterward.
He left with scars... and with a memory of Rohanne, one kiss, and a cut length of her braid as a keepsake. Dunk wasn't just collecting victories. He was collecting the cost of them.
Then came Whitewalls, what looked like a wedding tourney... and what smelled like treason. The prize was a dragon egg, and the guests were thick with old Blackfyre loyalties. Dunk entered disguised as the Gallows Knight, using a shield marked with "a hanged man swinging grim and gray beneath a gallows tree." Behind the music and laughter, a plot was forming: another spark for the Blackfyre cause.
Dunk uncovered pieces of it the only way he knew how, by stumbling into danger, getting betrayed, and still refusing to back down. He fought. He killed when he had to. He protected Egg. He disrupted the plan. And when the loyalist force arrived under Brynden Rivers, Bloodraven, the rebellion collapsed before it could truly begin. Dunk and Egg rode on.
Time moved. The boy grew. The realm changed. Egg became King Aegon V Targaryen, and Dunk remained at his side, until the dream from Flea Bottom became real: Dunk joined the Kingsguard, and eventually rose to Lord Commander under Aegon V. He fought in the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion and personally slew Daemon III Blackfyre.
And when politics threatened to tear the realm again, when Prince Duncan Targaryen broke his betrothal and married Jenny of Oldstones, enraging Lord Lyonel Baratheon, Dunk stood as the king's champion in trial by combat... and defeated the so-called Laughing Storm. This is the strange pattern of Duncan's life: He wasn't the one wearing a crown, but when a crown was in danger, he was the wall it broke against.
Even legends grow old. At a winter tourney in King's Landing, Duncan, already famed, was defeated by a sixteen-year-old Barristan Selmy. And years later, Jaime Lannister would read the White Book and remember Dunk as one of the great Lord Commanders who came before him.
And Dunk's mark shows up in the world long after his death. A shield bearing his shooting star and elm ends up at Evenfall Hall, House Tarth's armory, later carried by Brienne of Tarth, who uses it while traveling incognito. And the biggest whisper of all? George R. R. Martin confirmed that Brienne is descended from Duncan the Tall. So Dunk didn't just leave stories behind. He left blood.
In 259 AC, Dunk died in the tragedy at Summerhall, alongside King Aegon V and others, in a fire that still hangs over the history of Westeros like a curse. We don't know every detail of what happened there, only that Dunk's valor likely saved lives in the chaos. And that feels... exactly right. Because if Duncan the Tall had a destiny, it wasn't to be remembered as the strongest man in the room. It was to be the man who stood between the fire and everyone else.
Closing Words
And that is Duncan the Tall, a Flea Bottom orphan who carried knighthood like a burden, not a boast... and became the kind of legend the world doesn't deserve. If you enjoyed this, like, share, and subscribe, and come join the Discord so we can build a cozy corner of lore-lovers who live for stories like this one.
Until next time... keep your vows, keep your blade sharp... and remember: sometimes the greatest knight in the realm starts as a kid chasing a pig through the mud.
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