The children had no books, no ink, no parchment and no written language. Males and females both hunted side by side as wood dancers, using obsidian weapons, weirwood bows, and flying snares made with grasses. The children lived off the land, using stone and obsidian implements, wearing bark leg-bindings and shirts of woven leaves, dwelling in caves, crannogs, and hidden tree villages. They did not use metal, weave cloth, or build cities. Once they are bound to a weirwood, they live far longer than other children. The chosen ones are not robust, and do not live long on the earth, but they have the gift of greensight and are known as greenseers. Very rarely, one of the children is born with mossy green or blood red eyes, a sign that they have been chosen by the Old Gods. They often sing in their language, the True Tongue. They weave leaves and vines and flowers into their hair, and wear cloaks of leaves. The children are slight, quick, and graceful. They usually have large gold and green eyes slitted like those of a cat, allowing them to see in dark passages. They have large ears that can hear things that no man can hear. Their hands have only three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails. They have nut-brown skin, dappled like a deer's with paler spots.

The children are smaller than humans, but they are not childlike. Their hands had only three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails.

Another part of the forest wiki