House Stark of Winterfell is one of the Great Houses of Westeros and the principal noble house of the North. They trace their line to Bran the Builder, who is said to have raised the Wall at the end of the Long Night and laid the first stones of Winterfell upon the bones of the First Men. For some eight thousand years their forefathers ruled as Kings of Winter from that same seat, holding the North against marauder, Andal, and Targaryen alike.
Where lesser kingdoms fell to the Andals, the Starks kept the Old Gods and the old ways, and broke any rival who reached too far north: the Marsh Kings of the Neck, the Red Kings of the Dreadfort, the Warg King of Sea Dragon Point, the Barrow Kings of the Rills. When Aegon the Conqueror brought his dragons south, Torrhen Stark mustered thirty thousand spears on the banks of the Trident, weighed the cost, and bent the knee rather than burn. For surrendering his crown he was named Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, and his sons rode home unburned. He is remembered as the King Who Knelt.
By the events of A Game of Thrones the house is led by Lord Eddard Stark, brother-in-arms to King Robert during the rebellion that toppled the Targaryens, and now Warden of the North. With his lady wife Catelyn of House Tully he has five trueborn children, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon, and raises his natural son Jon Snow alongside them at Winterfell. The Starks are reputed across the realm as hard, plain, and honest folk, slow to laugh and slower to speak ill of an oath. Their sigil is a grey direwolf running upon a snow-white field; their words are Winter is Coming, and unlike most house mottoes they are a warning rather than a boast.