A wildling who keeps a squalid hall of his own beyond the Wall, north of the haunted forest, on a midden hill of timber and turf he names Craster's Keep. The bastard son of a black brother of the Night's Watch and a spearwife from the wood, he calls himself a godly man and friend to the Watch, though he is a slovenly, cruel old creature who takes his own daughters to wife as soon as they are women grown, fathering daughters on them in turn, and giving every son he sires up to the cold gods of the north (the Others) that he names with no other name than the white walkers. He keeps no son in his hall, and there are nineteen wives within it.
When Lord Commander Jeor Mormont led the great ranging beyond the Wall in 299 AC, Craster opened his doors to the black brothers as he had for rangers before, only to begrudge them every cup of ale and every crust they ate. After the host returned broken from the Fist of the First Men and sought shelter again at the keep, the brothers fell out with their host over food and women: Craster cut down a sworn man with a long axe and was in turn opened from throat to bowels by the dagger of Dirk, in the mutiny that has since been called the killing at Craster's Keep, where Lord Commander Mormont was also slain.