"Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales. "The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us , the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means . Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sun our songs ten thousand years." Meera said, "You speak the Common Tongue now." "For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home." "Two hundred years?" said Meera. The child smiled. "Men, they are the children."