House Cargyll was a lesser line of the crownlands, of origins now lost to the records of the Citadel. No chronicle remembers when it came into the world, who founded it, nor what hold it kept; the house's name is preserved chiefly by the song its sons made and by a single roll of arms at Ashford Meadow. By their device, a golden goose upon a bendy sinister field of black and red, men knew them when they rode.
What renown the house keeps, the twins Arryk and Erryk Cargyll bought it. Born so alike that even their sworn brothers of the white cloak could not tell one from the other, the two were raised together into the Kingsguard of King Viserys I and served beside him to his last breath. When the Dance of the Dragons came, the brothers fell on opposite sides of it: Ser Arryk took the green council's part with King Aegon II, while Ser Erryk cast aside his white cloak and flew to Dragonstone to stand for Queen Rhaenyra. The matter ended at the foot of her tower. Lord Commander Ser Criston Cole sent Arryk in his brother's likeness to murder the queen, and there the two met by ill chance and fought above an hour, weeping as they fought; in the end each slew the other upon the stones, and of their meeting Luceon of Tarth made the ballad "Farewell, My Brother," which is sung still. The line lingered after them for some seasons. Ser Clarence Cargyll rode beneath the golden goose at the tourney at Ashford Meadow in 209 AC, and there a young hedge knight named Ser Duncan the Tall took note of his arms among the gathered heraldry; thereafter the house drops from every roll the Citadel keeps. By the time of A Game of Thrones the name has passed out of the lords' books altogether, and the maesters set the goose among the extinct houses of the crownlands beside the Darklyns and the Hollards.