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At the end of Game of Thrones S04E04, Jon Snow tells the wives to come with them to Castle Black, and they respond that they've managed to survive the Wildings and Craster and hence they'll be ok by themselves.

But then Jon asks if they want to stay at Craster's Keep, and they say 'Let's burn it to the ground with all the bodies. The episode ends with the keep burning.

So what happened to Craster's wives after that? It appears they didn't go to Mole's Town either, as Gilly would have seen them there.

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  • Mole's town is on the other side of the wall, so of course they didn't go there! This probably can't be answered. Probably they'll eventually meet up with Mance's people. Jun 25, 2014 at 9:50

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What we know now -- in either the books or the TV-show -- is all the information we have about them, as far as I recall.

In the TV-show, the wives burn down his keep and apparently prefer to be homeless in the Haunted Forest with winter coming. In the books, all we see is that they send off Gilly with Sam. The "feeling" you get when you read that particular chapter is that they stay to die, since "Craster's sons" are coming:

Gilly was crying. "Me and the babe. Please. I'll be your wife, like I was Craster's. Please, ser crow. He's a boy, just like Nella said he'd be. If you don't take him, they will."

"They?" said Sam, and the raven cocked its black head and echoed, "They. They. They."

"The boy's brothers," said the old woman to the left. "Craster's sons. The white cold's rising out there, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old bones don't lie. They'll be here soon, the sons."

(End of chapter)

However, they seem resilient, and they have survived many years with Craster, so presumably there's a chance they survived. But that is speculation on my part.

The TV-show explored the aftermath of the rebellion where Mormont died, but the books did not. In a way, the TV-show ending of the wives' story is a more pleasant end, while the original ending from the books is -- in my opinion -- darker, and more realistic.

It feels to me like GRRM wrote the ending with just a hint of the doom awaiting the wives, and then left the reader not knowing how it ended on purpose. Both to accomplish this sense of reality, that you don't know everything that happens in life, but also to save himself of having to finish the story of what happens to the wives. And also of course, to leave a hint to the mystery of what Craster does with his sons. (Not a mystery in the TV-show, they revealed it)

Therefore, my personal hunch is that we will not get more info about what happened to them.

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    I'm thinking that maybe Craster's sons will leave them alone since they are their sons as well. So they would only have to survive the winter in the Haunted Forest. Piece of cake :P Jun 27, 2014 at 6:30
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    Or they would want them to "join" their side as wights. :) I doubt it would matter to them, and in any case, they have not seen their mothers since they were infants.
    – TLP
    Jun 27, 2014 at 15:43
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Some of his wives are abused by the mutineers at Craster's Keep after the mutiny. Gilly is the only known survivor of Craster's wives who is escaped with Samwell Tarly. What happened to the remaining wives are unknown.

Source

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    You’re not really adding any more information there that’s not already included in the question. Jun 25, 2014 at 8:53

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