Ladies of the Wood

Getting there
You first need to travel to the village of Lindenvale. If you don't have the fast travel markers, it can be reached by road from Midcopse by following the path east. You'll pass over a ford, straight over the first two junctions then turn North in the settlement. at the next junction, take the North East path until you reach the main trail. Continue following this in a vaguely Easterly direction and follow it as it turns South East, shortly after this you should reach Lindenvale.From here it is easiest simply to follow the trail south, ignore all turn offs to the left; these generally lead to Downwarren, just keep right and eventually you'll reach the start of the Crones' trail.

Follow the Trail of Treats
The first marker for the start of the Crones trail is a shrine. If you stop as soon as you notice the sweets and treats hanging from the trees, you shouldn't be too far from the shrine itself. Use your Witcher Senses and the shrine itself should light up red for you. Examine it and view a short cutscene (End evaluation; don't eat the sweets). Now all you need to do is follow the path. Hit your Witcher Senses up every few steps to light up the trail. It's not really necessary as the path is obvious, but the game needs you to do it to keep up. Follow the trail into what appears to be a settlement and you'll come across some children. Navigate the dialogue options and you'll be told that someone called Johnny saw a girl matching Ciri's description, but you won't be able to find out anything about Johnny because you'll be interrupted by an old lady called Gran. Gran is irritable and won't talk to strangers. She'll also send the boy who knows Johnny to the hut.

Find Johnny
When you follow Johnny's friend to the hut, you find Gran is there too and won't let you talk to the boy, so leave the hut again and either find a way to get Gran out of the hut yourself, or recruit the children to help.

The children can be recruited by playing a game of Hide and Seek with them, however it can be simpler to ask if there is anything else they want. They'll ask for sweets, which apparently Geralt has. After he gives them the sweets, a cutscene starts showing Geralt hiding while the children call Gran out of the hut to settle a fictitious argument. Geralt can now go into the hut to question Johnny's friend.

The child directs you out into the swamp. Follow the quest marker and hit up your Witcher Senses to highlight Johnny's footprints (those of you who saw the pre-release demos will begin to recognise this quest). Follow Johnny's footprints and you'll reach his den, however when he emerges and you start to talk to him, you'll learn he has lost his voice.

Retrieve Johnny's Voice
Follow Johnny through the swamp. When monsters appear, defeat them to continue (prioritise any Water Hags over the Drowners as they're rather annoying - can poison you and randomly burrow to burst out of the earth at you). Johnny will lead you to the foot of a cliff, at the top of which you can see a nest. You need to get to that nest.

If you look around, you should see a stream. Head towards it and a path up the hill will become apparent. Follow this path up to the broken bridge and jump across to the other side. You will immediately be attacked by Harpies and possibly also a Wyvern (I got a Wyvern, others make no mention of it). Defeat the monsters (the harpies shouldn't be too challenging, I killed them first then focused on the Wyvern. Use a Thunderbolt potion and it should go down without too much trouble) and loot their corpses, then go loot the nest. You'll want the feathers later in the quest so collect those as well as the bottle. Return to Johnny.

There will be a cutscene in which Johnny's voice returns and he gets rather excited. Ask him about Ciri, and then ask for his help in getting Gran to talk to you about her. Remember Johnny is a Godling, and as such will get offended if you are too blunt with him, so keep the dialogue choices good natured. Follow him back to the village (you will have to deal with some monsters again) and watch the cutscene where Johnny gets Gran to help you. When this cutscene ends, follow Gran into the large building and watch another cutscene as she calls the Crones. In order for them to tell you anything about Ciri, you'll have to clear up a problem at the nearby village of Downwarren. At the end of this cutscene, leave the building and read the copy of the Ladies of the Wood in your Inventory before heading to the village of Downwarren.

Downwarren
Follow the map guide North to Downwarren and examine the noticeboard. Take the Witcher's Contract, and any other notices that interest you and the quest marker should now direct you to the ealdorman of the village. Start a brief conversation with him and he will tell you about a tree which the villagers cannot get near. As you approach the tree, a voice will warn you several times to leave. Ignore it and kill the wolves hanging around as you examine the bodies in the area (use your Witcher Senses to highlight them in red). When you get the message to find the way under the tree, with the tree at your back you should be able to detect sounds a little ways off to the North West. You need to head towards it, but it's down a steep incline/cliff so unless you possess lemming-like qualities, you should search around for a safer way down.

When you get there, you'll come across a werewolf. Kill it quickly - its health regenerates when it glows red, again a Thunderbolt potion is a friend here. Use the nearby place of power and head into the cliff (climbing involved).

You don't need a Cat potion in this cave, so don't bother with one. The path will fork almost immediately, take the right fork and dive down to follow the cave around. Resurface at the end and climb out of the water, then follow the passage until you reach the heart of the tree.

Here you'll have to have a conversation with the tree. It will claim to be the spirit of a druidess who the Crones trapped here. Navigating the dialogue options, you will eventually ask how you can free the tree and then are presented with two options. The first is to doubt the spirit, the second is to offer your help to free it.

Doubting the Spirit
If you doubt the spirit, it will summon Endrega Worker minions to protect it. These will appear in waves, which you must defeat and in between them you should focus on hacking at the heart of the tree. Once you've killed the spirit, the Ladies of the Wood quest resumes.

Helping the Spirit
Offering to help the spirit starts the secondary quest The Whispering Hillock. This is basically a short treasure hunt to retrieve the items needed to free the spirit (a black horse from nearby, feathers - from the raven nest earlier, and the bones of the spirit's body). You still have a chance to kill the spirit by tricking it, or you can release the spirit. It is unclear what long-term effect this has, however the children in the swamp village are freed (and thus saved from eventually being eaten by the Crones) if you do release the spirit.

Returning to the Crones
You can now leave the passages beneath the tree and return to the ealdorman. Follow the quest marker and start a dialogue, then receive payment. A cutscene will trigger and you will see the true forms of the Crones. Dialogue with them will give you more information about Ciri and trigger a short side-quest where you play as Ciri; Escaping the Bog.

Finish your conversation when the cutscenes end.