Geralt leaves, seeing Nivellen as no threat to anyone. Now Nivellen worries that she only accepts him as a monster. He was ready to give up on the matter until he met his latest match, Vereena. He enjoyed their company, but none of them managed to lift the curse. To accomplish this, Nivellen invited women from the surrounding villages (often rewarding the respective families with the enchanted riches from the mansion’s treasury). To lift the curse, he must receive ‘true love’s kiss’. He raped a priestess who cursed him to become the bear-like creature he is now. Over a meal, Nivellen reveals that he was once the leader of a group of bandits. The mansion is enchanted and obeys his every command. This leads him to a house in the woods where a genteel monster named Nivellen makes his home. Geralt happens upon a deceased couple with strange wounds. Adda is a human girl again and Geralt is rewarded for his efforts. Geralt fights the monster, and eventually lifts the curse by preventing it from returning to it’s crypt. Ostrit hopes to use the monster’s existence and true origin to claim that Foltest is unfit to rule.īut a Witcher does not take bribes. He attempts to bribe the Witcher into letting the monster be, as she is proof of an incestuous relationship between the king and his late sister. Geralt is approached by Lord Ostrit of Novigrad – a man with no love for Foltest. Here’s a brief rundown of each of the stories.īut things are not as straight forward as they seem. We are given a flavor of the world: it is dark, unforgiving, and full of tantalizing mysteries. This is a medieval world wherein monsters are an added danger (you know, besides the plague, squalid living conditions, and a despot or two). The stories establish the importance of Geralt and the world in which he lives in. Sapkowski adds an element of Grim Dark to fairytales (which are pretty dark in their original forms anyway). Each story takes inspiration from European Folklore and the Tales of the Brothers Grimm. The latter also acts as a framing story for the entire collection. This is also the major source of the Netflix series’ first season. They serve as an introduction to the world of the Witcher and, of course, Geralt of Rivia.

There are seven (more like six and a half) short stories in this collection. Warning: Spoilers for the game and Season 1 of the Netflix production! Summary

Publisher: superNOWA, 1993 (Polish) Gollancz, 2007 (English).

Title: The Last Wish (English), Ostatnie życzenie (Polish).

The last wish witcher book