Talk:Catriona plague/@comment-2601:601:A080:675B:C94C:26A1:CD9E:9603-20180428125344/@comment-31.205.21.36-20190124234308

The Catriona Plague is specifically mentioned in the books, and called the 'red death', which bears some resemblance to the black death in name and in form. The point you mention in the Wild Hunt could be an anachronism on the game's part, but also bear in mind the game's events take place several years after the books (and so several years after the catriona plague outbreak, by which point they are unfortunately very familiar with the disease).

Furthermore, victims of the black death are often referred to also as victims of bubonic plague - its worth noting that bubonic plague was a thing before the black death, but the black death is notable for having been exceptionally fatal, and at the time having no cure (although oddly historians have noted that the population of Europe did gain an immunity). The two are not mutually inclusive or exclusive terms, so either way your case study doesn't disprove the main theory.

Finally, Sapkowski's prose actually invites the connection. For one, the sufferers of the plague in the unfamiliar city she visits speak an unfamiliar tongue, and their houses are marked by white crosses. As it is also a port town, it is highly likely she turned up in Genoa.

The book by that point has already established Ciri can enter realms known to us as she meets Sir Galahad at the book's beginning, and later appears before a mounted Knights Templar in Medieval Poland when it was being purged of pagans. Sapkowski takes pains narratively to note how a flea survives from this unknown port city into Nilfgaard (which note she immediately recognises on account of recognising Nilfgaardian speech), so it is very heavily implied that we are meant to make the connection between the Catriona Plague and the Black Death.

Granted it isn't outright said that the Catriona Plague is the Black Death, but Sapkowski's prose is often subtly written and too much evidence favours this inference.