The gathered banners of the North were welcomed to Winterfell by Edwyle Stark, who was in much higher spirits since returning from the south. All were given quarters within Winterfell, though any non-noble retainers for whom room could not be found would have to take up lodgings in the winter town, which stood mostly empty.

The main event of the gathering was held in the godswood, before the heart tree. An aurochs, captured in the wolfswood and brought alive to Winterfell, was brought out before the assembled lords and nobles, and Lord Edwyle Stark personally slit its throat with a long, straight-bladed knife, allowing the blood to spill over the roots of the heart tree while the lords gave thanks to the gods for allowing the return of summer, and loosening the dread grip on winter on the world. In days of old, its entrails, or the entrails of those convicted of heinous crimes, would have been hung from the bowers of the heart tree, but those days had passed for most of the North, and could result in questions from the south that the nobility of the North would rather not have to answer.

After the sacrifice, a great feast was held in the Great Hall, where the younger nobility of the North could meet and mingle, and after the feast, Lord Edwyle called his bannermen to his solar to discuss matters of importance for the North.