- See also: Images of Direwolves
Direwolves can grow larger than ponies and twice the size of large hounds. In proportion to their bodies, their legs are longer and their heads are larger than normal wolves. Their muzzles are also longer and more pronounced. Possible colorations include grey with yellow eyes and black with green eyes. Albino direwolves have white fur and red eyes.
Direwolves are efficient solitary hunters and are extremely intelligent. Left to its own devices a solitary direwolf may join a pack of common wolves and establish dominance over it thanks to its larger size. The scent of direwolves can agitate dogs.
Although it is believed that direwolves and shadowcats hunted the children of the forest,, the wood dancers of the children are said to have called upon direwolves to fight on their behalf. The Others are said to have ridden dead animals, including direwolves.
Direwolves once roamed the north in large packs. According to a semi-canon source, direwolves have been hunted by people because they are a large and dangerous predator. According to Theon Greyjoy, direwolves have not been sighted south of the Wall for two hundred years. Rangers of the Night's Watch hear direwolves beyond the Wall.
A Game of Thrones
A direwolf will rip a man's arm off his shoulder as easily as a dog will kill a rat.
The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.
Direwolves are based on real world canine dire wolf which went extinct some 9,500 years ago. Historical dire wolves were equal in size to the largest modern gray wolves, but were nowhere near the size of those portrayed in A Song of Ice and Fire.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 1, Bran I.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 37, Bran V.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 24, Bran IV.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 41, Jon V.
- A Clash of Kings, Chapter 34, Jon IV.
- A Feast for Crows, Chapter 44, Jaime VII.
- A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 4, Bran I.
- A Storm of Swords, Chapter 14, Catelyn II.
- A Clash of Kings, Chapter 4, Bran I.
- The World of Ice & Fire, Ancient History: The Dawn Age.
- The World of Ice & Fire, Ancient History: The Coming of the First Men.
- A Feast for Crows, Chapter 5, Samwell I.
- A Clash of Kings, Chapter 53, Jon VII.
- "Interview with the Dragon" © 2003 Robert Shaw
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 5, Jon I.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 4, Eddard I.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 47, Eddard XIII.
- A Game of Thrones, Chapter 16, Eddard III.
- A Clash of Kings, Chapter 64, Arya X.
- A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 34, Bran III.