Game Of Thrones: 7 Fan Theories About Jon Snow 's Parents (That Aren't R+L=J)

Another one we can look at straight from the text, rather than having to read into things, is the idea that Jon is the son of Ned and an unnamed woman who was the daughter of a fisherman.

This is the story told to Davos in A Dance with Dragons by Lord Godric Borrell. He recounts that at the beginning of Robert’s Rebellion, a fisherman and his daughter took Ned across the Bite to the Sisters (a group of islands located near the Vale). Although the man died in a storm, his daughter saw Ned to safety, and was left with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly.

Ned did certainly find a fisherman to take him across the Bite after Jon Arryn called the banners, so he could safely get back to the North and call his own banners. While on the trip he may well have spent time with the daughter, and it’s possible that he left her with a bastard. The timeline doesn’t exactly match up, as this was over a year before the Sack of King’s Landing (around which time Jon was born), but at a stretch - or if you assume the timeline is slightly off - then it could be plausible.