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Fairytales and Stories (Polish Bajki i klechdy) book by Vicovaro scholar Flourens Delannoy, who lived around 200 years after the Nilfgaard Wars, in the Nilfgaardian Empire. It is a collection of folk tales describing monsters, sorcerers and witchers from a simple man's point of view, after many events from the times of Geralt of Rivia became legends.

Quotes from Fairytales and Stories are used in Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher saga to open some of the chapters (or acts), together with quotes from other future works, like Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi. They show that after 200 years, the former Northern Kingdoms are now part of the Nilfgaardian Empire and the stories of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri are considered to be legends.

Then the soothsayer spake thus to the witcher: "This counsel I shall give you: don hobnailed boots and take an iron staff. Walk in your hobnailed boots to the end of the world, tap the road in front of you with the staff, do not look back. And when your boots are worn out, when your iron staff is worn down, when the wind and the sun have dried your eyes such that not a single tear will fall from them, then you will find what you are searching for, what you have, at the end of the world. Perhaps!

And the witcher walked through fire and water, never looking back. But he took neither hobnailed boots nor a staff. He took only his witcher's sword. He obeyed not the words of the soothsayer. And rightly so, for she was wicked.
Baptism of Fire (UK edition)
"I can give you everything you desire," said the fortune-teller. "Riches, power and influence, fame and a long and happy life. Choose."

"I wish for neither riches nor fame, neither power nor influence," rejoined the witcher girl. "I wish for a horse, as black and swift as a nightly gale. I wish for a sword as bright and keen as a moonbeam. I wish to overstride the world on my black horse through the black night. I wish to smite the forces of Evil and Darkness with my luminous blade. This I would have."

"I shall give you a horse, blacker than the night and fleeter than a nightly gale,' vowed the fortune-teller. "I shall give you a sword, brighter and keener than a moonbeam. But you demand much, witcher girl, thus you must pay me dearly."

'With what? For I have nothing.'

With your blood."
pg. 3, The Tower of the Swallow (UK edition)
The king loved the queen boundlessly, and she loved him with all her heart. Something so fair had to finish unhappily.
pg. 267, The Tower of the Swallow (UK edition)
"I have enormous eyes, all the better to see you with!" shrieked the great, iron wolf. "I have enormous paws, all the better to seize and hug you with! Everything about me is enormous, everything, and soon you will discover it for yourself. Why are you looking at me so strangely, little girl? Why do you not answer?"

The witcher girl smiled.

"I have a surprise for you."
pg. 397, The Tower of the Swallow (UK edition)

The Witcher

Contents

Fairytales and Stories
by Flourens Delannoy
"Then the fairy said to the witcher: "I will tell you what to do: put on a pair of iron shoes, pick up an iron staff. Walk in the iron shoes to the end of the world, pat the ground before you with the staff, and sprinkle it with tears. Walk through fire and water, do not stop, do not look back. And when your shoes wear out, and when the iron staff shatters, when the wind and the heat dry your eyes so that you cannot shed another tear, then you will have reached the world's end, and you will have found what you seek what you love. Perhaps."
And so the witcher walked through fire and water without looking back. But he took neither the iron shoes nor the staff. He took only his witcher's sword. He did not heed the words of the fairy. And that's a good thing, because she was an evil fairy."

Journal entries

Location

Notes

  • The book's inclusion in CD Projekt's The Witcher is an anachronism, since the book was written 200 years after the times the game is set in.
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