Old Way

Old Way is a  and  religious ideology in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe. It was the ideology and customs of the Ironborn people before  invaded the Iron Islands and implemented   on the isles. It was briefly revived by  and.

Plunder
The Old Way states that only women can where ornaments like jewellery but men, who are all required to be warriors, are only allowed to wear ornaments if they acquired it from the corpses of people they themselves had personally killed on raids. This was known as the Iron Price. Acquiring ornaments through any other way was called the Gold Price and was viewed as dishonorable for a man to participate in.

Labor
Hard labor, such as agriculture and mining, are commonly viewed as being beneath freemen by Ironborn culture and adherents of the Old Way in general. For this reason all farming and mining in the Iron Islands is done by thralls. However, fishing is viewed as an occupation fitting for freemen though not as fitting as pillaging.

Military
Before the Conquest and during the brief periods of Old Way restoration, the Iron Islands and it's colonies (which were usually in the Riverlands though during the most recent restoration the North was colonised) were ruled by the axe and sword. A  " " ideology is central to the Old Way. Usage of catapults, trebuchets, battering rams and other artillery and siege engines is prohibited by the Old Way because it is considered to be inglorious to use them in battle. Sieges are also prohibiting because using starvation as a tactic to ensure the enemies' defeat is similarly seen as not being glorious.

Execution
Under the Old Way all prisoners of war were executed by drowning in a form of human sacrifice to honor the Drowned God.

Thralldom
Under the Old Way warriors were allowed to capture civilians on their raids and bring them back to the Iron Islands. These captives would then made thralls and made to do manual labor for no pay. When the warrior wanted to he could take any of his female thralls as his wife in a religious ceremony a priest of the Drowned God would perform. The amount of so called "salt wives" a warrior has is a testament to his wealth and prestige. Children born from this marriage are not considered bastards and will inherit the warriors lands and wealth if all of the children born from the freeborn "rock wives" have died.

Thralls are forced to perform manual labor but are not considered slaves as the buying and selling of people is considered to be against the Old Way.