Ep. 2 — "A Grain of Truth" with Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye
Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye calls in from North Carolina to discuss the second short story from Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Last Wish, “A Grain of Truth” with Alyssa from GoodMorhen. Very important bits include: legends of Blue Roses and Bruxas, justice in fantasy, “What’s the day-to-day of a Beast-Vampire relationship?”, and a behind-the-scenes look at Vengerberg Glamarye, the only shop for lore-accurate Witcher fragrances.
This episode is available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.
Update (April 2020): Since this episode aired, Charlotte has launched the Ciri Cedar & Elderflower Glamarye mentioned in the episode as well as a new Essi Daven Marine Verbena Glamarye!
As part of the Breakfast in Beauclair international hanza, receive an exclusive discount on your next purchase of glamarye. Use code “HANZA” for 10% off your purchase at Vengerberg Glamarye at any time. Visit glamarye.com or find Vengerberg Glamarye on Etsy to make your purchase.
In this Episode
[00:00] Cold Open
[00:00] Introduction
[00:00] Discussion
[00:00] “Tidings from Toussaint”
[00:00] Discussion
[00:00] Outro & Credits
Relevant Links
Transcript
Cold Open
ALYSSA: Is there any, like, anywhere, that we might dig in?
CHARLOTTE: In this particular chapter?
ALYSSA: Not so much, right?
CHARLOTTE: Um, no, not really.
ALYSSA: Okay.
CHARLOTTE: No, his sense of smell… doesn’t really come into play—
ALYSSA: In this one?
CHARLOTTE: —in–in that story. Um, I feel like Roach’s does—
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: more than anything.
ALYSSA: Yeah. Yeah. Aw, sweet baby Roach.
Introduction
[Breakfast in Beauclair theme music by MojoFilter Media]
ALYSSA: Welcome to Breakfast in Beauclair, a global Witcher Podcast. My name is Alyssa from GoodMorhen, and I’ll be your host as you, I, and our international hanza accompany Geralt of Rivia and his destiny, Cirilla of Cintra, across The Continent.
[Announcements]
Before we get started, it brings me so much joy to introduce you to four legendary members of our hanza: Jamison, Olaf of Silesia, Bruno R. Salino, and Alex Berner, who have become the founding patrons of the show. This is absolutely mind-blowing to me. Although the Patreon page was created with the other social media accounts before the podcast trailer aired, I wasn’t expecting to mention it in an episode for a very long time and I certainly wasn’t expecting anyone to really find it, but…
[Sighs]
I… I can’t. With you all.
[Laughs]
I’m never going to forget this, but the very first email from Patreon came through two hours after the trailer aired. I was at work, I was eating lunch, and I flipped over my phone and there was this push notification from Patreon saying that we received our first patron.
Guys.
[Laughs]
I full on choked at my desk for, I think, like, 2-3 minutes. Just coughing and coughing and coughing.
So, thank you, Jamison, for being the very first patron of Breakfast in Beauclair and nearly killing me in the process.
Jamison was shortly followed by Olaf of Silesia, Bruno R. Salino, and Alex Berner, who is my fellow Crimson Pelican. I want to personally thank our founding four for going so far off the Path to show their support for the show.
Each episode, I’ll introduce any new patrons of the show to you, our international hanza. If you’d like to join these founding four in an everlasting spot on the hanza wall of our website, head on over to patreon.com/breakfastinbeauclair.
[Episode Introduction]
As for this episode, Charlotte of Vengerberg Glamarye joins us from North Carolina to discuss the second short story in Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Last Wish, “A Grain of Truth.” Together, we’ll explore themes such as legends of Blue Roses and Bruxas, justice in fantasy, and “What’s the day-to-day of a Beast-Vampire relationship?”
During the break, Lars from WitcherFlix joins us to discuss cast, crew, and post-production updates from the Netflix series.
And when we return, Charlotte and I go behind-the-scenes of her shop, Vengerberg Glamarye, to learn how she creates her beautiful lore-accurate Witcher fragrances.
As part of the Breakfast in Beauclair international hanza, receive an exclusive discount on your next purchase of glamarye. Use code “HANZA” for 10% off your purchase at Vengerberg Glamarye through the end of September 2019. Visit glamarye.com or find Vengerberg Glamarye on Etsy to make your purchase.
Without further ado, let’s get to this episode’s short story, “A Grain of Truth.”
Discussion
[Breakfast in Beauclair stinger by MojoFilter Media]
ALYSSA: Hey everyone, welcome to the episode. My name is Alyssa from GoodMorhen and I'm so excited to have Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye joining me from North Carolina.
CHARLOTTE: Thanks so much for having me.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I'm so excited to talk to you today, um, so, you and I actually got to know each other through Instagram, like, right when I first started my account. You have your own shop dedicated to lore-accurate fragrances and I'm really excited to have you on today to talk about one of the short stories, "A Grain of Truth," as well as about your business venture.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I'm really excited.
[Laughter]
ALYSSA: So just to give the audience a little bit of background, can you tell us a little bit about your early experiences with the Witcher Universe?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, absolutely. So, I first was exposed to the Witcher story and the Witcher world, um, through the video games. Mainly just The Witcher III.
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: But my partner, you know, was really excited about the Witcher series. He got The Witcher III for PC. I basically spent an entire, uh, summer just watching him play it. [Alyssa laughs] I was so engrossed in the story of this video game and also just how stunning the game was. I'd never seen a game that beautiful in my life. Um, and I'm, kind of, I'm really picky about video games. They have to be gorgeous, they have to have a good story, and they have to engage me, you know, for a long period of time and the Witcher pretty much checked all those boxes off. So, I was, like, a—I was a backseat gamer.
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: I was an over-the-shoulder gamer. And, so, finally I was just, like, give me the controller. Like, it's my turn. I want to play this game. You sit behind me. You watch me play it.
ALYSSA: I love it.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah. I–I was obsessed. I'm one of those people that likes to get 100% on video games. And I was like, I can't do that. I can't get 100% on The Witcher. There's just too much to do. If you don't follow certain storylines, you don't get to do these things. So you can just play it, like, for an infinite amount of time and just… it's a different game every time. So, the game was the first introduction. After I played the game, I still wanted more. Uh, so, I got into the books. I actually started with the audio books—
ALYSSA: Oh, really?
CHARLOTTE: —instead of the actual, like, paper books. Yeah. Audible has audio books of The Witcher series that are narrated by, probably one of the best audiobook narrators I've ever heard. His name is Peter Kenny. Um, and I'm sure that some people have mixed opinions, I guess, about his reading.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: But, I think he's fucking brilliant. So, I had, like, a two-hour commute at the time.
ALYSSA: Oh, wow.
CHARLOTTE: And it made that commute so pleasant and so wonderful and so magical for me. Like, I just wanted to keep driving. I didn't want to get home or, like, get to work. I just wanted to keep listening to the books.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: So, first the games, then the audiobooks, then the books.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I feel like a lot of people that are very familiar with the Witcher now definitely walked into it through the video games. I mean, there's going to be a lot of people that are coming in through the Netflix show. I think it's going to be really fascinating to see, um, kind of, who comes in through the Netflix series and then if and how they're receptive towards the books and the original source material. But yeah, the way that you got into the Witcher universe sounds exactly the same as how I did too.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, pretty standard.
ALYSSA: Yeah, definitely backseat driving. I think, yeah, with me, I had to be talked into getting my own account and playthrough. I was super content with just watching. I was really sad when I had been playing on, you know, my ex partner's account, and I was super OP [slang: “overpowered”], and then I made a new account and I was just getting mauled by, like, Level 5 wolves. I was so, so heartbroken.
[Charlotte laughs]
ALYSSA: As we've spoken about, you have your own business centered around perfumes and fragrances from The Witcher. So, can you tell me a little bit about how smells and fragrances play a role in the storyline? And, briefly, how that's inspired, um, your line of work?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Geralt, you know, as–as I'm sure most of the audience will know, is a witcher. He's, kind of, a–a mutated human being. And as a result, his, uh, senses are heightened. Most of the time, in the book, focuses around his sense of eyesight, because he's got these crazy cat eyes; he can see in the dark. Or his crazy fighting style or his, you know, like, uh, Witcher sense. Um, but, he also has a really keen sense of smell as a result of, you know, going through the Trial of the Grasses and becoming a mutant. Sapkowski, in the books, really makes a point of illustrating this. Usually when Geralt is around a woman. It comes into play at other points in the book, but for the most part, he emphasizes this very keen sense of smell around the ladies.
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: And so, you know, he comes across the lady, and he, like, walks up to the lady, and Sapkowski goes to great lengths to describe what he smells in addition to what he sees, you know, with this lady. So, almost every love interest that Geralt galavants around with, in the books, has a very distinct perfume.
ALYSSA: Yeah, for sure. Again, like super bizarre to always hear, uh, male authors describe women.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah. I–I just gotta say, I know exactly what you're talking about. Sapkowski does not disappoint in this regard. He certainly falls right into that category. I mean, I love him. I love the books.
ALYSSA: Yes.
CHARLOTTE: But–but he is a male author writing about women.
ALYSSA: So today, Charlotte and I are going to be discussing "A Grain of Truth," which is the second short story in Andrzej Sapkowski's The Last Wish. Part I starts in a forest:
[Reading] Geralt in the middle of this forest comes across the corpses of a man and woman. After examining the corpses and contents of the man's belt, Geralt determines that they came from the forest, on their way home from the town where a credit note in the belt came from. He questions, out loud, to his horse, Roach, why they weren't on the highway and he makes the decision to investigate further.
ALYSSA: This is a pretty short bit, but it introduces, kind of, the setting and this mysterious tone of what might happen in the rest of this chapter.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, he definitely starts to implement some of his man hunting skills in this, like, first tiny, little scene.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: He's, uh, a clearly a skilled tracker. And when he comes across some weird, morbid shit in the woods, I mean, what's a bored witcher to do, you know?
ALYSSA: Exactly.
CHARLOTTE: [Imitating Geralt] “Hey, there's some, uh, dead bodies over here. Let's–let’s go, check it out.”
ALYSSA: And the cool thing that you see here is, like you said, how he actually does as a tracker and as, um, a witcher and you really get to see him work. He rummages through these corpses and he comes across a credit note in the man's belt. I think this is, like, really clever. But he says that, like, no one carries a credit note for long. So, he thinks about where the credit note came from and determines that they must have left that town recently. So, they must have been on their way home from there. But, why were they so far off the path? And that's when he's, like, something's odd about this. He notices that the corpses are, like, super bloodied and messed up from some sort of monster. He's not sure what but, he can tell that the animals that, kind of, scavenged the bodies only found them after the bodies were dead.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, he's a–he's a sharp one when it comes to dead bodies, that's for sure.
ALYSSA: But not anytime else.
CHARLOTTE: No, its–it's interesting when he pulls out his, uh, his intelligence, that's for sure.
ALYSSA: It's definitely selective.
CHARLOTTE: Yes. Very much so.
ALYSSA: But I adore him. So…
CHARLOTTE: Me too. Oh, Geraldo.
ALYSSA: [Reading] Part II, Geralt encounters the wall in the middle of the forest and spots a girl at a distance. Roach is uneasy. And when the witcher tries to talk to the girl, she runs down the hillside and disappears. He passes through the wall's gate and enters the overgrown courtyard of a rundown mansion. Suddenly, a beast charges out from the house toward him. Geralt pulls out his sword in a defensive move and the beast lurches to a halt. The monster threatens Geralt and the witcher calls him out on his bluff. The two trade banter before the monster invites the witcher into the manor.
ALYSSA: So, this is one of my favorite scenes in this whole chapter. And I think that the banter here is really funny and really engaging and unexpected, really. So you have Geralt walking into this seemingly abandoned grounds of, like, a home and he starts poking around, and there's this beautiful blue rose bush in the middle. And as he's going to inspect the flowers, there's just this thing that comes out of the house and charges at him. Because, he's a witcher and he's loaded with weapons, um, pulls out his sword and then the beast just, kind of, stops and then it starts talking in the Common Tongue, which is the language that most people speak, um, in the Northern Kingdoms and it threatens him and you get all of this, like, theatrics, where the beast is just, like, "Flee, mortal man!" And then Geralt, kind of, like, "No." He's like, "Make me."
CHARLOTTE: He's like "Oh yeah, what, like, you and what army?" Like—
ALYSSA: Exactly. Like, Geralt is not frightened of this creature at all and the creature still threatens him. And then when Geralt really doesn't show any signs of, like, backing down or being terrified. He's just, kind of, like, "Oh. Uh..."
CHARLOTTE: "What do I do now—"
ALYSSA: Exactly.
CHARLOTTE: "—Most people scream and piss themselves."
ALYSSA: Exactly. So, I think that it just sets it up [in] a very funny and unexpected manner. Especially because, you have this monster. He keeps saying, like, "Oh, pox on it." And it's just very funny and very formal. I love this section.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. I also think it's interesting for someone who, you know, in the beginning of the books and in the previous chapter is described as a monster hunter, he just, like, kills monsters for coin.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: He doesn't immediately start flaying this thing alive. He pulls out his sword in a defensive move and waits to see what will happen.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: You know, luckily for him, the monster is not actually that intimidating.
ALYSSA: No. And there's this excerpt from this chapter that I absolutely love because, I just think it's so funny. Again, like, it kind of subverts your expectations about what you presume is a threatening monster. I guess—to back up a second—the description itself is very funny. This monster is described as humanoid wearing "tattered, but well-made clothes" with a "bear-like head, enormous ears, wild eyes, crooked fangs, set in terrifying jaws, and a red tongue flickering like flame." And this is what Geralt encounters and then when they actually get to talking—again, like, they're speaking the same language. This monster is actually strangely formal as well. [Charlotte snickers] But there's this really funny description where—this is at the point where he realizes that Geralt isn't going to be scared of him. This excerpt from the book reads:
[Reading] The monster shifted from one foot to the other and scratched his ear. “Listen you. Are you really not frightened of me?” “Should I be?” The monster looked around, cleared his throat and yanked up his baggy trousers. “Pox on it, What’s the harm of a guest in the house? It’s not every day I meet someone who doesn’t run away or faint at the sight of me.”
ALYSSA: It's so bizarre and I think it says a lot about Geralt's experiences in his world. This isn't out of his realm of, like, what might be normal or abnormal.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. And I think due to his experience, he's able to determine, at this point, just by looking at something, whether or not it's a real threat or if it's something that's been cursed. In the previous story, they set up this whole idea that he's definitely able to break curses that other people aren't capable of breaking due to his profession.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: He knows, uh, somebody in a–in a bad situation when he sees one.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: Although, I might have just, like, given a–given some stuff away already. [They laugh]
ALYSSA: We're going to get to the spoilers in a bit. So, you have a note here about the indigo rosebush—
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: —and about its symbolic importance outside of Sapkowski's work. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. When I was reading this story for the first time, I was actually really intrigued that Sapkowski decided to make the rosebush indigo, or blue. I've actually seen blue roses referenced before in other fantasy stories. The first time I ever saw it was in this really old movie from the 1940s called The Thief of Baghdad. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. It's a trip. But if you have, you'll remember that there's a scene in there where a princess is given a blue rose and when she smells it, she forgets everything. And so, I had this really clear image in my head of seeing this motif of a blue rose somewhere. So, I did a little bit of digging about it, and it turns out that blue roses are, kind of, prevalent in fantasy stories, but they're more prevalent in fantasy stories from China.
ALYSSA: Oh, interesting.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, so, the myth and the legend of the blue rose is from China, as far as I'm aware. They symbolize unrequited or impossible love. Very, very difficult to get or just, like, fantastical, impossible love. And the legend of the blue rose, to summarize it, basically goes like this:
There was a princess and she didn't want to get married. Her father wanted her to get married and she was a very headstrong princess. So, basically she said, "All right, I'll marry whoever brings me a blue rose." And at this point, no one had ever heard of such a thing, such a thing did not exist. So, various people tried to bring her what they thought she meant by "a blue rose." Someone brought her a blue rose made out of sapphires and gold. Someone brought her a blue rose painted on porcelain. Um, someone tinted the windows in the palace blue and, you know, brought her a white one. So, that when the light shone through, it looked blue. And she turned every single one down. Ultimately, she falls in love with someone that she's not supposed to marry, you know, someone who's, like, a pauper, and she's talking to the pauper about her predicament, "Told my father I need a blue rose, now he's got all these guys bringing me all this stuff, I don't know what to do." So, the pauper is like, "It–it doesn't really matter what color rose they bring you, like, when you know it's the right one, you'll see it as blue." So, eventually, like, the pauper presents her with a rose, right? And it's a white rose, and everybody in the palace can see that it's a white rose, but she insists that it's blue! So she ends up marrying this pauper and that's the story of the blue rose.
ALYSSA: That's so interesting.
CHARLOTTE: But I thought it was fascinating that he decided to make the forbidden rosebush indigo, because it does symbolize an impossible, really fantastical relationship.
ALYSSA: Yeah, which is definitely par for the course when it comes to this story. The idea of fantasy and the idea of a fairy tale is something that, as we'll see, each of the characters actually talks about—the impossibility of fairy tales. So, this is absolutely perfect, and thank you so much for bringing that into the conversation. I think that's so interesting.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: [Reading] So, the monster leads Geralt to a dining room in the house, which lights and fills itself with food at his command. Sat at the table with the feast, the monster introduces himself as Nivellen. After some coaxing from Geralt, Nivellen tells the witcher his story. Years ago, Nivellen became the young head of his family's gang. One day, the gang pillaged a temple, and raped the priestess there. She cursed Nivellen before killing herself, and a few days later, he had been transformed from a boy into a monster. The gang and servants fled, some were killed, and no one returned, leaving him alone for months.
ALYSSA: So, this is the first time that we're really hearing about the details of what happened to this monster, Nivellen. Like you had said, clearly, Geralt knows that this isn't something that's necessarily threatening; that this monster isn't necessarily something that's malicious, so he takes the time to actually dig into who this monster is. It's this really incredible part of the story, because it wraps the reader up in, like, the tension that this room has. You have at this table, a monster and a monster hunter, or at least a person who believes he's a monster and a monster hunter, and they don't really know how each of them got there. I think, they're, on some level, a little bit confused, but also uncertain about what the other person's intentions and motives are.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, definitely. Also, like, when you, when you learn about the backstory of Nivellen, you know he definitely becomes even more human than his, like, bumbling you know, baggy-pants self because, uh, clearly, you know, he's done something wrong. When I was reading through this story again, it was emphasized that Nivellen was, like, forced into raping this priestess? By his friends, or by his gang members, or whatever.
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: And that they were like, “Oh, you know, gotta become a man,” and—
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: —and all this stuff, but like, he still did it.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: He still did it. I don't care if he was, you know, a milksop or whatever he described himself as. [Laughter]; Just, like, some–some stupid boy. I don't know, I–I think that he knew it was wrong.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: 'Cause he definitely seems to feel remorse about it.
ALYSSA: Yeah, for sure. When he talks about his experiences with that gang, it seems that Nivellen came from a family that operated like how a mafia would. Where, he does say that his father had something to do with, like, the levies in the town but, that people also didn't like him and that his grandfather and father had both been robbers. His grandfather went a bit nuts in his old age and his father was chopped up and brought to him in, like, a cart which is [eugh] gross. So, this is how Nivellen becomes the head of this gang. So he's young, inexperienced, a pushover, and a milksop, as you quoted, which is probably an insult that I should use in the future.
[Laughter]
ALYSSA: Yeah, and he, kind of, gets dragged along and peer pressured, to an extent, into this by older members of this gang. But, you're right, like, he does go along with it. I don't–I don't know if he would have felt remorse or accountability for his actions had, like, this curse not happened either.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, that's–that's a good point. I don't think he would have really felt that bad about it had nothing happened afterwards.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I think he would have just kind of continued on that same milksop trajectory. For. Ever.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. It's good to have consequences for your actions, you know, puts things in perspective.
ALYSSA: So, aside from the actual story that Nivellen tells Geralt, we have the opportunity to learn a lot more about witchers. For a reader reading The Last Wish for the first time, we get a little bit of excerpts from “A Voice Of Reason.” In the last story, “The Witcher,” we had a little bit from King Foltest about, like, what Witchers do. Velerad, again, like, gives the reader a little bit of insight, but it's not terribly thorough, so we get another little nugget about the backstory of witchers from Geralt's conversation with Nivellen.
ALYSSA: So, in this part, Nivellen asks Geralt if he can see a portrait of his old self hung above the fireplace and Geralt says "yes" without really thinking. Nivellen then asks Geralt who he is and Geralt responds:
[Reading] "I don't understand."
ALYSSA: Nivellen says:
[Reading] “You don’t understand? My portrait is hung beyond the candlelight. I can see it, but I’m not human. At least, not at the moment. A human, looking at my portrait, would get up, go closer and, no doubt, have to take the candlestick with him. You didn’t do that, so the conclusion is simple. But I’m asking you plainly: are you human?”
ALYSSA: And Geralt responds, you know, “If that's what you put it then not quite."
ALYSSA: It's clever to be able to see Nivellen deduce Geralt's, you know, mutation just from this one simple act.
CHARLOTTE: I wonder how many times he's asked a guest that question though.
ALYSSA: Do you think he ever has a reason to doubt?
CHARLOTTE: I don't know. That's the thing is that's a really specific question to ask someone.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: And also, like, a very specific set of parameters. It's like, "You would have to take a candlestick, and get up and go closer. And, like, well, who did you last have in here that you were questioning whether or not they were human?
ALYSSA: That's—
CHARLOTTE: HMMM.
ALYSSA: [Late to the realization] Oh–OH. Spoilers. So, like, again, we're going to get to the details of Nivellen's story, but if you think about the kinds of people that he's had in his complex, they're like painfully normal, [Laughter] like, overly normal and very, very human. There's a very specific kind of person that finds themselves in Nivellen's manor in the middle of the woods and Geralt is not that kind of person, and not that kind of pair of people. So, he's alone, he says that he's lost. He's armored to the teeth. I'm not surprised that Nivellen has some curiosity and skepticism about who this guest is in his home.
CHARLOTTE: Yep, definitely not surprising. Uh, if a guy like that just showed up at my front door, I'd probably be pretty wary too.
ALYSSA: Not if he was in a bathtub.
[Laughter]
ALYSSA: Classic. And again, like, the detail that we get about witchers here after Geralt admits that he's a witcher; Nivellen says, like, “Oh, I know what you are like I've heard about them." Nivellen says:
[Reading] “I’ve heard about witchers—they abduct tiny children whom they feed with magic herbs. The ones who survive become witchers themselves, sorcerers with inhuman powers. They’re taught to kill, and all human feelings and reactions are trained out of them. They’re turned into monsters in order to kill other monsters.”
ALYSSA: And I think this invites… curiosity from the reader. It fleshes out this person who we've met, but we still don't really know anything about who he is.
CHARLOTTE: That's definitely just, like, some exposition!
[Laughter]
CHARLOTTE: You know?
ALYSSA: Oh, for sure.
CHARLOTTE: "I've heard about you. Let me tell you all about you." You definitely didn't know that apparently it's common knowledge within this world that witchers are abducted children that are drugged up and become monsters that's what everybody seems to think.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: You get the overall tone of how the world sees Geralt.
ALYSSA: Yeah, when you think back to how Geralt was treated in the previous short story, in “The Witcher,” it informs the reader as they move forward in the story and through the saga about the perception of witchers and we do learn a lot more about it as the story continues. Nivellen here isn't wrong, but it's definitely something that, tonally, has a lot of skeptical or negative undertones to it as he's, uh, interviewing Geralt.
CHARLOTTE: Definitely.
ALYSSA: We learned from “The Witcher” that monsters have a sensitivity to silver. Geralt brings this information back in his conversation with Nivellen. Nivellen insists that he's a monster and Geralt says that he's not, because Nivellen is able to touch the silver flatware, he's able to touch the silver medallion that Geralt has. This is where Geralt believes, you know, Nivellen isn't as much of a threat as he might seem, and that it's probably from a spell or a curse, and then this is where we, like, dig into the details of Nivellen's story. We learn about his gang, we learn about his family history, and when it comes to how this curse was placed upon him: they overpowered the priestess and told Nivellen he had to become a man. While he was raping her, she yells out something, and then kills herself during the act, and then the whole gang got out of there. So, what she said was that Nivellen "was a monster in human skin; that he'd be a monster in monster skin" and then something that Nivellen can't remember about "love and blood," which... all of that came true.
CHARLOTTE: And she killed herself afterward, like, oh my god.
ALYSSA: Mmhm. That is commitment to, I don't know, retribution? Revenge? Punishment? [Eugh] Grizzly.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I mean if it–if it was so bad that she had to kill herself afterwards, so, that is just… that's rough. I don't understand why; she should have just killed him.
ALYSSA: Oh yeah, like, she had a hidden dagger, that's how she killed herself. I mean, again, like, if there's a whole gang of people there, she probably wouldn't have been able to take out all of them, but still.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, it's yeah, they messed up big time. I mean, Nivellen did something that someone committed suicide afterwards, so that's–that's pretty bad.
ALYSSA: Right, right. But it was revenge suicide, question mark? This is not useful for anybody, like, this whole thing is just bad juju.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: And in this magical world, for all we know, that could have been how the curse is sealed, you know? I have no idea.
[Laughs]
ALYSSA: Oh, in that, like, she killed herself?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Yeah, it could have had something to do with like making sure that curse was–was a good one or something.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I assume that that's what it was. I assumed that blood had something to do with starting it and then, spoilers—
BOTH: —ending it.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: Yeah, which we're going to get to.
CHARLOTTE: Yup.
ALYSSA: So, a few days after this incident in the temple, Nivellen awakes and finds himself transformed. So, he goes on this rampage through the house. He kills some of the servants, everyone leaves from the complex, and he's just left alone sobbing over the bodies of some of his servants. Yeah, this ain't great.
CHARLOTTE: He just goes on a rampage and has a massive tantrum and then kills people. Like, if he was capable of speaking in the Common Tongue, as he clearly is, I feel like maybe he could have talked to somebody? But, I guess everyone would have just freaked out. I mean, like, I understand, you know. A guy with the head of a bear, that's pretty freaky.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
[Laughs]
ALYSSA: I mean, talking to a friend about this, he wondered why, you know, Nivellen just didn't take ten, chill out, and then just emerge, after having contemplated his life and his thoughts and just been like, "Hey, listen, this is weird, I'm aware, but I can control the house now. So, you've got nothing to do.”
[Laughs]
CHARLOTTE: “I'm half of a bear now, it's okay though. Everything can continue as normal.”
ALYSSA: “And you don't have to do any of the cooking, any of the cleaning, because I got it with my magical curse. Uh, so you can just hang out, we can be friends.”
[Charlotte laughs]
ALYSSA: And... not what happened. He went on a rampage and then everybody ran.
CHARLOTTE: Yep.
ALYSSA: Eventually, Nivellen spots a trespasser on the grounds and jumped outside to confront him. The stranger, scared, told the villain the roses he was taking from the rosebush were for his daughter and Nivellen, remembering old fairy tales about romance breaking spells, yells, "Your daughter or your life!"
CHARLOTTE: Oh my god.
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: Oh, Nivellen.
ALYSSA: The merchant confesses that his daughter is only eight. Nivellen, feeling bad, invites the merchant in, giving him gold and precious stones on the way out. So, word spreads amongst peasants about the wealthy beast in the woods and Nivellen hosts a number of girls who are arranged to stay with him for short periods of time, before leaving with some of the family fortune. As the years pass, Nivellen continues to grow confident in himself, and is less concerned about returning to his former state.
CHARLOTTE: I thought it was funny; that part where the merchant's, just, like, "My daughter's eight though."
[They laugh]
CHARLOTTE: Like, "What do you mean?!"
ALYSSA: I can't imagine, like, panicking in the moment, and like, the few milliseconds it must have taken for him to be like, "Argh! Daughter! Argh! Fairy tales! Your daughter or your life." Like, wild.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, it's definitely a common trope in fairy tales for sure.
ALYSSA: Yeah, at this point, he's been alone. This is the first human interaction he's had in months. At this point in his life, he presumably wants to break this curse.
CHARLOTTE: [Mockingly] Yeah, the kiss of a fair, virgin maiden—
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: —will break your curse and solve all of your problems.
ALYSSA: And he does think that. He does think that. So, as these villagers, you know, keep bringing their daughters to this creature, boar, bear-like thing... just in the middle of the woods. Yeah, it definitely comes out that Nivellen stops believing in, like, the power of women or the power of virgins or, like... he stops believing that, um, because none of it works.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, he just feels so lonely. He just continues to be a sugar daddy [Alyssa laughs, because it's v. true] for awhile.
ALYSSA: Basically, that's–that is exactly what he is.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah. Best Sugar Daddy Ever™ apparently. Yeah, this is, um, the whole arrangement of, you know, the–the "daughter or your life" thing. I mean, I–I–I'm sure most people that have read this story draw common lines between this story and Beauty and the Beast.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: Because in that story, you know, oh, it's the love of the fair maiden, or whatever, that breaks the curse and the beast is no longer a beast. And, Sapkowski, he does this a lot; he sort of does these little homages to famous fairy tales within the Witcher world. Um, he has a tendency to take well known fairy tales and then just sort of like rewrite them in his own way, into the Witcher universe.
ALYSSA: Exactly.
CHARLOTTE: And that's kind of what he did here. It's, like, a Beauty and the Beast premise. Um, he's done this with Rapunzel and Snow White and, like, other fairy tales throughout the series, but in the original Beauty and the Beast, the beast, sort of, being a sugar daddy is also a thing. [Laughs] Like, he sends people back with jewels and magical robes and beautiful trinkets and things.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: I was like, Oh, that's–this is familiar. Good job Sapkowski.
[They laugh]
CHARLOTTE: Just throw Geralt in there, yeah, make it interesting.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I mean, as a reader reads through the short stories especially, it's definitely clear that, as you said, like, Sapkowski, for lack of a better word, just like, he mutates these fairytales—
[Charlotte chuckles]
ALYSSA: —um, into something that's still recognizable and vaguely familiar, but unexpected.
CHARLOTTE: Just like, there's Geralt. What's he gonna do?
ALYSSA: He sticks himself in everybody's business—
CHARLOTTE: I know!
ALYSSA: —like nobody's business.
[They laugh, because it's still true.]
ALYSSA: What a sweet baby angel, but so... like, no common sense when it comes to other people. Very good at his job, zero common sense with other people.
CHARLOTTE: I'm, like, half the time I'm wondering if he. like, followed this lead of these, like, corpses of travelers on the road out of boredom? Or, it feels like, [imitates Geralt] "Oh, if it's a monster, then maybe I'll get some coin." Like, it's kind of hard to tell where he's going with it. Like, what are his motivations here? Is it just boredom? I don't know.
ALYSSA: It–it seems like a really morbid, like, Hansel and Gretel way to, like, find friends.
[They laugh.]
CHARLOTTE: Oh yeah.
ALYSSA: So we can dig into, like, the arrangement that he really creates with the fathers, rather with the girls themselves. So, he does mention that when these fathers bring their daughters, which happens quite frequently, I think there were at least, like, there were probably, like, five or six girls he spent time with. They go through the same cyclical period of being really terrified of him, and then enjoying his company, and then some of them engage with him, get into the sexy times with him, get a li'l freaky with him, and like, in his beast form. And he does mention, he's like, "I ran in the mirror between breaks to see if anything had changed." [They laugh, half because it's funny, half in pained female disbelief. Lol.] Good on you!
CHARLOTTE: You poor thing.
ALYSSA: And it didn't work. Uh, which is why he at some point becomes a little jaded and a little, um, very much a realist with himself in his situation.
CHARLOTTE: Mmhm.
ALYSSA: It's so strange. Like, they have this lovely little thing about consent in his story, and when he talks about these women. He says, like, you know, they were treated like princesses when they were here. They only held a fan and didn't–weren't stooping over washing, that sort of thing.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I actually found that kind of interesting.
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: Just because, you're sort of introduced to this character, sort of, like, "Oh, he's a bumbling, cursed rapist."
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: You know? And then, like, afterwards, like, "He's a nice guy—"
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: "—he raped somebody, but he's a nice guy."
ALYSSA: It's so bad, because I just had, like, that scene from Shrek pop into my head—
[Charlotte laughs, probably because she—understandably—has no idea where this tangent is about to go.]
ALYSSA: —and in the background, just, "Time may change me but I can't change time."
[They laugh]
ALYSSA: And that's, like, basically what happens with Nivellen, and I think it's part of the circumstance of a situation where he's, like, no longer this, like, miserable pushover and this uncertain person, and then he just kind of grows into his beastly self, you know, for better for worse? Question mark?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I feel like Sapkowski and–and, you know, the character of Nivellen at that point are just sort of, like, you know, "How can I make up for this horrible thing I've done? Well, like, every other woman I meet, I'll treat like royalty."
ALYSSA: Yeah, I wonder if it's intentional repentance? Or, if it's really just him not being within peer pressure or being alone? And he kind of reverts back, to some extent, to who he was without this gang in his life. Like, what does his authentic self look like?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: I guess that this is it? Question mark? But I wonder, like, what these years have done to him mentally, because he had that period where he was just miserable, depressed, and alone. And then these few years with these women build his confidence.
CHARLOTTE: Yes, maybe–maybe he found the light, you know, who knows?
[Laughs]
ALYSSA: I feel, like, we–we're all kind of weird and dumb and awkward when we're preteens.
CHARLOTTE: Definitely.
ALYSSA: Which, presumably, Nivellen, when this happened, is somewhere in his, like, preteens, maybe mid-teens, uh, when this curse first happens. You know, we're now twelve years on, so he's probably... I'd ballpark him maybe in his early to mid-twenties at this point.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, and, like, I have to keep reminding myself, you know, especially talking about this particular story; this happened in a fantasy world.
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: You know, like, this isn't something that happened in the real world and in fantasy world, justice is different.
[Alyssa laughs]
ALYSSA: Also, there are bear people.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, then there's bear people, yeah.
ALYSSA: "I have to remind myself that the bear people aren't real people."
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, not real people. So, it's, yeah, maybe–maybe he's a good guy now.
ALYSSA: Yeah, people change, I suppose.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: I mean, I know I'm significantly different [laughs] from when I was like thirteen, twelve.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, he definitely seems to have grown up a bit.
ALYSSA: Yes, as is inevitable for all of us.
[Charlotte sighs]
ALYSSA: Just, like, staring into the passage of time, watching it fly by.
CHARLOTTE: Mmhm.
ALYSSA: [Reading] On his way out, Geralt asks Nivellen about the girl outside the manor, saying that she's likely a monster herself. Nivellen insists to Geralt that they love each other. As they speak, Nivellen interacts with Roach, the witcher's horse, in the courtyard, proud that animals like him. Geralt asks again if Nivellen needs his help and Nivellen tentatively asks about lifting the curse, citing "monstrous dreams that he's been having." Just as he's about to leave, Nivellen calls out to Geralt, asking if he came here following the tracks of a merchant who had been to the property recently. Geralt confirms that something happened to one of them and Nivellen reminds Geralt to leave the forest quickly for his safety and leaves the courtyard.
CHARLOTTE: Well, that's ominous.
ALYSSA: This is a very short part of this sub-part, but it has a lot of information that is necessary later.
CHARLOTTE: Mmhm.
ALYSSA: Like, all of the information that you get in this part is necessary later.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah–yes.
[Chuckles]
ALYSSA: So, before leaving, Geralt tells Nivellen the church that they had raided, was the church of Coram Agh Tera, the lion-headed spider. Again, we hear that this place is just, like, not great; superbad juju, green flames, skulls and bones on the altar.
CHARLOTTE: Sick.
[They laugh.]
ALYSSA: That's dope! And, yeah, so, this is, like, a very specific temple that's, like, not really known for being... one of the friendlier ones.
CHARLOTTE: Idiots. They're like, "Let's go raid this one! It's got skulls and bones and green fire."
ALYSSA: So, Nivellen this whole time, as he's been talking to Geralt, has been telling him, like, "Eh. I don't really want to lift it. I'm stronger this way. I'm not sick all the time as I was when I was human. I have more confidence in myself, my libido is great.” Like, all this other stuff—
CHARLOTTE: [Laughs] Oh god.
ALYSSA: —and then, in this moment of vulnerability, right before Geralt is about to leave, he actually asks, like, is it possible to lift this? He admits that he's been having these wild dreams, and he just describes them as "monstrous" and we don't really get much, but Geralt tells Nivellen in this moment, he's like, "Yes, you should be afraid."
ALYSSA: As seemingly unimportant as this may seem—
[Laughs]
ALYSSA: —uh, Nivellen's interaction with Roach: he's, like, kind of, patting the horse and the horse really likes him. And Nivellen says, like, "Animals like me. My cat came back!"
[Charlotte snickers]
ALYSSA: He says, like, you know, "Even though I'm in this monstrous form, I get along with them." The last little bit of information is the detail of what Geralt believes that girl is. Geralt tells Nivellen that that girl was probably a rusalka. If I'm remembering correctly, a rusalka is a kind of, you know, female water creature or demon.
CHARLOTTE: So, kind of like an OP [“overpowered”] nymph, or something.
ALYSSA: Yeah, that kind of sounds like what it is.
CHARLOTTE: Like a messed up water nymph that just wants to see you dead.
ALYSSA: Yeah, there's a lot of women like that.
[Laughs]
CHARLOTTE: Oh yeah.
ALYSSA: Nivellen says that, you know, he suspected as much. She's, like, dark and, like, weird and speaks in a some sort of odd language he can't understand. But then he insists, like, "We love each other." Cute. But also, like, how?
[Laughs]
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, that's kind of weird. And also like, why–why wouldn't she take him as a victim? Like, I found that very interesting, too.
ALYSSA: Yeah, that's definitely one of the more interesting questions that comes up that's answered by the end of the chapter. In parts III and IV, we see Geralt in these two small moments after he has left Nivellen's manor.
[Reading] Ignoring Nivellen's advice, Geralt spends the night in the forest, eventually coming across something which makes Roach nervous and fussy. The horse's demeanor reminds Geralt of Nivellen's words at their departure: "Animals like me."
ALYSSA: So at this point, Geralt has made some sort of connection that isn't totally clear for the reader just by reading these, um, parts,
CHARLOTTE: He's definitely tuned into what his horse is doing, which makes a lot of sense to me, actually.
ALYSSA: Yeah?
CHARLOTTE: I used to work with horses a lot on a pretty regular basis. I used to ride them, I used to take care of them, and I gotta say that they're definitely up there with some of the most psychic animals I've ever been around.
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: I'm sure a lot of people know of the saying that, like, horses can smell fear. Or, you know, you can't be nervous when you're around them, because they'll pick up on that and exploit it.
[They laugh]
ALYSSA: Ominous.
CHARLOTTE: But no, they're–they're very, very psychically-inclined animals, and they pick up on a lot of really, subtle things that most people, and you know, most normal humans aren't aware of. And apparently, they're more sensitive to some things even than witchers. You know, except the poor horse doesn't have, like, a silver sword and, you know, crazy reflexes, so they–they just get scared about it.
ALYSSA: It also probably doesn't help that Geralt is just being rather dense this whole chapter.
[They laugh]
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: And then you've got the horse being like, "Um, Ma'am? Something's not right." And it takes so long for Geralt to actually listen.
CHARLOTTE: "Could we–could we maybe not stay here? That would be great."
ALYSSA: Yeah. So, the connection that Geralt makes here is that there's this little ring of mushrooms, which the narrator refers to as a devil's ring. These stupid, little mushrooms make Roach scared. Geralt is, like, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" [Not a direct quote] And he remembers how fussy she was at the beginning of the chapter, when Geralt first encountered the girl in the woods and she didn't want to go toward the manor. And comparing her behavior in those two moments against what Nivellen said about "animals like me," it's clear to Geralt that Roach and, you know, her animalistic instincts, has identified that Nivellen is, in her–in her mind, you know, fine and non-threatening, but there's something weird about these goddamn mushrooms and there's something really weird about that girl. And this is when Geralt finally realizes that, like, "Oh, something might be wrong."
CHARLOTTE: Way to go, Geralt.
ALYSSA: Took you long enough, but ya got there.
CHARLOTTE: Like, he had completely forgotten about, like, the mutilated people on the road until Nivellen, you know, was like, "Yeah, maybe just don't come back here tonight."
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: "Don't worry about it, just head on out. Go find the road. See you later."
ALYSSA: I know. Geralt was too busy trying to, like, play it cool and, like, acting his way into Nivellen's home and then he's like, "Oh shit. That's right. That's why.
[Laughs]
ALYSSA: “I was here following the tracks of some dead people."
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I don't know what he was doing, he's like "Okay, bye."
ALYSSA: Oh. Sweet, sweet baby.
[They laugh]
ALYSSA: [Reading] In Part V, Geralt returns to Nivellen's manor, his silver sword now on his back. The gate is wide open and he hears singing in a language he can't understand. The girl from the forest is now on the back of the dolphin, in the middle of the dried fountain, singing. Geralt confronts the girl and guesses that she's been attempting to enslave Nivellen's mind so he'll blindly murder people for her, but also assumes that she hasn't succeeded yet. She reveals herself to be a bruxa, a kind of vampire, and attacks the witcher, turning into a giant black bat.
[Reading] In confronting her, Geralt says: “You’re so like a rusalka that you could deceive anyone. But horses are never mistaken. They recognize creatures like you instinctively and perfectly. What are you? I think you’re a moola, or an alpor. An ordinary vampire couldn’t come out in the sun.”
ALYSSA: This scene is so funny, because it's almost, like, this Scooby–Doo monologue where you're not getting it from the villain, but you're getting this huge monologue from the hero about, "I think you're this," and she doesn't say anything because she's mute. He's like, "Are you... this?" She doesn't say anything. She just kind of shakes her head. Um, so she can understand him. It's just really funny.
CHARLOTTE: It's, kind of, like a weird, like, monster jeopardy.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: I feel, like, a lot of the time, while he's monologuing to her about, like, "Are you so and so," I think that he's actually just biding time—
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: —so that he can, like, either get himself into a good position if there's a threat or, like, just try and, um, figure out what she is by, like, getting, like, a little bit closer to her.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: Or just seeing if he can reason with her, you know, the same way he did with Nivellen.
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: Because of Roach mostly and I guess because his, you know, his, you know, seemingly dull witcher senses at this point. [Alyssa laughs] He's like, "Oh, definitely something up here."
ALYSSA: I actually haven't thought about this. Did he know that she would understand him or was he just kind of talking? Like, we do know that there are different kinds of monsters and classes of monsters in this universe and each of them have varying degrees of, um, sentience?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, or just varying degrees of intelligence and sentience.
ALYSSA: I'm curious to know: if Geralt has been unable to identify exactly what she is, if he's talking for the sake of talking or if he knows that she can understand him. And, I mean, obviously, she does, like, because she starts reacting and she starts nodding and shaking her head, but was he just going to talk at her if she didn't?
CHARLOTTE: I'm not really sure, I mean, maybe he was trying to, in a way, like, flatter her?
ALYSSA: Okay.
CHARLOTTE: By being like, "Ooh, you're so like this. Ooh, but you're not."
[Alyssa chuckles]
CHARLOTTE: I-I sort of feel like he was trying to flatter her.
ALYSSA: Yeah?
CHARLOTTE: To make her, like, come out in her true form by listing all the things that she's not, like, "You're superior to all of these things."
ALYSSA: Interesting. That's an interesting perspective.
CHARLOTTE: "But what are you? Like, oh, what are you. You're superior. All these other things are just inferior to you. You wouldn't like it if I called you a rusalka, would you?"
ALYSSA: [Laughs] So any men listening, if you need dating advice...
[They laugh]
ALYSSA: Just lay it on thick.
CHARLOTTE: Just tell me everything that's inferior to me. Tell me how I'm superior.
ALYSSA: Oh, Lord. So, you have a couple of details here about things that you've researched about bruxas, do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I–I was interested to figure out if a bruxa was something from Polish mythology or from a different mythology, as Sapkowski is, you know, wont to do. He will just, sort of, grab different bits of fairy tales from all over the world. What I found out was that a bruxa, although I don't know if it's pronounced bruxa, in its native language, but from what I understand it originates in Portugal.
ALYSSA: Okay.
CHARLOTTE: And it may be pronounced "BRU-há" or a "BROU-hā." Uh, a bruxa is, in Portuguese mythology at least, is a female vampire, and they're normally transformed into a vampiric form via witchcraft. And according to their mythology and fairy tales, they leave home at night in the form of a bird and their favorite activity is tormenting weary, lost travelers. So, I was like, oh, well that fits nicely.
ALYSSA: Um, Nivellen does have a note that she likes birds, which then this is probably par for the course with what Sapkowski intended. Yeah, but I feel like lost travelers don't need any additional tormenting.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, right?
ALYSSA: This just sounds like a terribly rude... mosquito-like, uh, vampire.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, and, uh, well it was interesting, because at the very beginning of this story, Geralt wouldn't even have found the bodies in the road, had he not noticed, you know, like, scavenger birds.
ALYSSA: Yes.
CHARLOTTE: Um, and he just sort of, like, [imitates Geralt] "Oh, those birds look like they're interested in something morbid. Let's go that way."
[Alyssa giggles]
CHARLOTTE: So I thought it was interesting how it, sort of, like, he mentions her like of birds and throws birds into the story. I think as a way to sort of reference the origins of this particular monster.
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: I don't know if that's true or not but that's just how I interpret it.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: She's–she appears as a beautiful maiden, leads a normal human life by day. Apparently bruxas are able to bear children, but she eats her children as a regular form of food—
ALYSSA: [Emphatically] Oh no!
CHARLOTTE: [Laughs] So, there's that. And it's also said that she's impossible to kill.
ALYSSA: Eugh.
CHARLOTTE: So, that's also an interesting little tidbit. But yeah, that's that's what I learned about–about the bruxa.
ALYSSA: Creepy.
[They laugh]
ALYSSA: Odd. But is eating your own children sustainable? Like, this–this seems, like, really inefficient. If a bruxa has the same, you know, maternity cycle as a regular human, eating like that every nine months, that seems really inefficient.
CHARLOTTE: Yes, I agree.
ALYSSA: Some crazy Kronos shit.
CHARLOTTE: Definitely not unheard of for Mother Nature, though, I mean, it happens in nature all the time but—
ALYSSA: This is true.
CHARLOTTE: —definitely not sustainable.
ALYSSA:
No, this seems kind of shortsighted.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah.
ALYSSA: [Reading] At this point, we see the bruxa and Geralt engage in combat. She's fast and she's agile, and Geralt eventually lands a small cut no longer than a little finger on her chest. The bruxa transforms back into her female form and through telepathy threatens to kill him. During the battle, Nivellen stumbles into the courtyard, bleeding and shouting for Vereena, as the vampire and the witcher fight. As each of them struggle to gain the upper hand, Nivellen calls out to her, distracting her from the fight, and stabs her through the chest with a broken pole. The vampire pulls the pole deeper into her chest, bringing herself closer and closer to Nivellen, who still holds the shaft. She attempts to kill him and the witcher instinctively runs toward the pair, and with a forceful cut, beheads the bruxa.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, it's pretty gory. I remember thinking the imagery of that was, uh, particularly gnarly.
[Alyssa laughs, she probably hasn't heard the word "gnarly" since Tony Hawk's 2004 Playstation classic, Underground 2]
CHARLOTTE: I quite liked it. I was like, "Ugh, gross."
ALYSSA: It's oddly poetic—
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: —the way that she's described as, like, a white butterfly on a pin. And as she's pulling herself down this pole, this pole is erupting from her back along with her blood. The fight ends very suddenly. So, Geralt and this bruxa are going at it and then Nivellen interjects himself into the fight, and then all of a sudden it's over. As she goes to kill him, she tells him, "Mine or nobody's. I love you." And then that's when she goes to, like, chomp on his neck and end it.
CHARLOTTE: Oh yeah. So, when Geralt cuts her head off, right before she bites Nivellen's throat, when I was reading through it, I was just like, that's how the curse was supposed to end. Nivellen was supposed to die. Right there. In the hands of his bruxa. She was supposed to rip his throat out. And Geralt is just like, "Nope!" Whoop!
[Accurately mimics the unmistakable sound of a lethal monster being beheaded.]
CHARLOTTE: And he just, like, cuts her head off. Just like, "Nope!"
ALYSSA: Can you imagine that sound effect, like, in the Netflix series every time he, like, makes a cut. Whoop! Whoop!
CHARLOTTE: Schloop! Aaand it's gone. But, it's just like, he ruined a perfectly good curse, man. That supposed to be his punishment for rape: death by Bruxa. Like, you totally ruined it.
ALYSSA: I don't know if you intended this way—if the curse itself and the details of the curse were about love and blood, saying that he would die at the hands of, like, a vampire, it-it would be, actually, a very interesting and poetic way to tie all that up and an interesting interpretation of what "blood" means in the context of this curse.
CHARLOTTE: Mmhm, yeah, that's definitely how I interpreted it.
ALYSSA: Oh my god, all the layers.
[They laugh]
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, yeah, she's, like, dragging herself along this pole, you know, pulling her bloody body down this splintering pole towards her lover and being like, "If I can't have you, no one can," and ripping out his throat, like, that's–that's exactly what that priestess intended.
[Alyssa laughs]
CHARLOTTE: And Geralt's just like, "Derp-a-derr. Oh, I can't let that happen. Sorry."
ALYSSA: This is not the time to be a hero, um—
[laughter]
ALYSSA: Geralt just always finds himself into the middle of everybody's business, when he shouldn't.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. I mean, it's a complicated situation, I'll give him that. Like, it's complicated.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: At least, in killing Vereena, preventing any more weary travelers from–from a horrible fate.
ALYSSA: Just leaves the TSA at it then. Eugh!
CHARLOTTE: Yep, mmhm.
ALYSSA: [Half-sung] A–mer-i-can Jokes!
CHARLOTTE: America... it's crazy!
ALYSSA: [Laughs] Oh, goddamn it.
[Laughter]
ALYSSA: [Reading] After Geralt beheads the bruxa, he approaches Nivellen, who has been transformed back into his human form. In his sobbing and laughing disbelief, Nivelelen asks Geralt:
[Reading] “Why? After so many years, how’s it possible?”
ALYSSA: And Geralt responds:
[Reading] “There’s a grain of truth in every fairy tale. Love and blood. They both possess a mighty power. Wizards and learned men have been racking their brains for years, but they haven’t arrived at anything except that—”
“That what, Geralt?”
“It has to be true love.”
CHARLOTTE: [Unexpectedly blows raspberry, Alyssa laughs] This is so cute.
ALYSSA: It's a surprising end to this. I think given what readers know about The Witcher, as it's been written, up until this point, it's a surprisingly, light-hearted end.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, it wraps it up in a nice little bow.
ALYSSA: Geralt concludes the story with this concept of the power of love and blood. Presumably, he means Vereena's love and blood is ultimately what broke Nivellen curse. Because the curse is finally broken, you can assume that every person that Nivellen has encountered up until this point, regardless of, you know, their relationship with him, has never been true love, which... is interesting, and I think begs a lot of questions around like, what was the nature of their relationship? Did they court each other in a traditional way? Like, how do you go about dating a vampire? Is Netflix and Chill, like, still on the table?
[They laugh]
ALYSSA: What is the–what is the day to day like of being, like, a bear man and this vampire? Like, is she wandering around in pajamas eating cereal, like? Like, do they poop in front of each other? Like, these are the questions that I have, like, how real is this relationship?
CHARLOTTE: That's a really good question. I think it's interesting that they say that she really loves him. I–I know they end the story with, you know, "Oh, it was true love. It has to be true love." But part of me just wonders if the curse was broken, because he killed the bruxa?
ALYSSA: Interesting, yeah.
CHARLOTTE: And like, I feel like the bruxa was, like, the embodiment of Nivellen's curse. Although, it's nice to think that, you know, Vereena actually did love him and that her last words were, "I love you," which is very sweet.
ALYSSA: Barring the fact that she tried to kill him.
CHARLOTTE: Y–y–yeah, I mean, she–she was like, "If I can't have you, nobody will”—
[Laughs]
CHARLOTTE: —and was gonna rip his throat out. So, what does the vampiric relationship look like? It's not a very healthy one, I mean, you can apply that term to a lot of relationships in the real world.
ALYSSA: Oh, absolutely.
CHARLOTTE: They may not be sucking your blood, but uh—
[Chuckles]
CHARLOTTE: I think–I think on some level, you know, those of us that have been in the relationship game for a while, we know exactly what a vampiric relationship looks like.
ALYSSA: Oh yeah. Womp. I, yeah, I suppose you can compare it to an abusive relationship, where you have someone who is a victim and then you also have someone who has a need and a desire for control on, you know, so many levels. In this specific scenario, you know, she wanted or needed Nivellen to be a resource for her as she terrorized this forest and this–and the towns nearby. In–in some, like, in some part of her soul, like, she really did love him, otherwise the curse wouldn't have been broken at all. But it's very much, like, I think, like, an inner perception as to how to define love.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, definitely. There's a lot of different definitions of it and it's different for everybody. Depends on the situation.
ALYSSA: So, now that we've wrapped up our discussion reading of "A Grain of Truth," Charlotte, what have you taken away from this short story?
CHARLOTTE: Well, before I criticize Nivellen and Geralt any more than I already have....
[Laughter]
CHARLOTTE: I mean, a lot of it, sort of, comes down to ‘don't judge a book by its cover’?
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: You know, that sort of saying. Um, because Geralt, although, he does seem monstrous to the outside world, isn't necessarily a monster. And, you know, one could say the same of Nivellen. It's just sort of, like, a circumstantial problem that, uh, a lot of people don't bother to understand.
ALYSSA: Mmhm.
CHARLOTTE: So, not making split-second decisions and judging people right off the bat.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: Um, is–is sort of, like, one of the little moral takeaways. You know, try to have some sympathy for the villain.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: But then, there's the other part of me that's just, like, well—
[Laughs]
CHARLOTTE: You can be a spineless young boy who–who rapes a priestess and gets cursed, and one day a bored witcher could just come along and make everything okay. You know, totally by accident. You don't actually have to face the actual consequence, which should have been a bruxa ripping your throat out on the end of a bloody spike. Like, that should have been your curse. But no, Nivellen! You're a changed man.
[Alyssa sighs]
CHARLOTTE: So, you know, and also, trust your horse.
ALYSSA: Yeah, yeah.
CHARLOTTE: I love Roach.
ALYSSA: Iconic, absolutely iconic. Um, so we're going to take a quick break, and when we return Charlotte and I go behind the scenes of her shop, Vengerberg Glamarye.
“Tidings from Toussaint”
[“Tidings from Toussaint” theme music by Bettina Campomanes]
LARS FROM WITCHERFLIX: Hey, it's Lars from Witcherflix and this is “Tidings from Toussaint.” Every episode I'll give a nice, little update about what it is new for the Witcher show on Netflix. So, let's jump right into it.
The post-production is well on its way at the moment. This is good and bad for us fans. It's good, because it means that the Witcher show's release date is coming closer and closer. But, it's also bad because news is rare and sparse at the moment. So, this installment of “Tidings from Toussaint” is a little bit shorter. [Turns out this news segment is the same length as all the others LOL Lars is an absolute gem that makes me smile many smiles.]
Nevertheless, I can report some interesting tidbits from the world of the Witcher show. RedanianIntelligence, a great and very dedicated fan page for news surrounding the show, did a report on the post schedule for each episode that was posted on Instagram by an unnamed member of the post-production team. Unfortunately, we can only see details about the first three episodes. We learn again that directors Alik Sakharov and Marc Jobst are in charge of the pilot episode. So, Episode 1 is in good hands, as we have two men who were directors for shows such as Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Black Sails, Marvel's Daredevil, Hannibal, or Marco Polo. Director Alex Garcia Lopez was again confirmed for Episode 3 of the show.
Meanwhile lots of actors are doing ADR recordings at the moment. ADR means “Automated Dialog Replacement.” These sessions are for improving the overall audio quality by re-recording the dialogue that was recorded during filming. Henry Cavill already finished his sessions, as well as Adam Levy who plays the druid Mousesack. Other actors who did ADR recordings include Jason Thorpe, who will be Lord Ostrit, one of King Foltest's courtiers from the short story "The Witcher;” Jeremy Crawford, who will play the dwarf Yarpen Zigrin; and Blair Kincaid as the Skelligan warrior and one of Princess Pavetta's suitors, Crach an Craite. All of them teased us by saying that they were amazed by the final scenes they saw on screen. Well, this sounds really promising.
In other news, Digital Spy, one of the biggest British-based entertainment, TV, and movie websites wrote an article about "9 rising TV stars you need to watch out for in 2019.” And rightly so, two of these nine spots were earned by our Witcher's own Freya Allan as Ciri and Anya Chalotra as Yennefer. I think we can completely agree on the fact that even the short teaser trailer gave some promising hints at their acting skills. I have a feeling Anya as well as Freya will really surprise us with their interpretation of Yennefer and Ciri.
By the way, until today the teaser trailer for the Witcher show was watched more than 18.7 million times. It's now the 6th most watched video on Netflix's YouTube channel. It only needed about 4 weeks for this. This is definitely a great accomplishment.
Anyway guys, that's it for me. We'll talk again in the next episode of Breakfast in Beauclair. Until then, thanks again for listening and good luck on the path!
[“Tidings from Toussaint” theme music by Bettina Campomanes]
Discussion
ALYSSA: Thank you so much for the update, Lars, and welcome back from the break. I'm here with Charlotte and we just wrapped up our discussion on the second short story from Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Last Wish: A Grain of Truth. So, I want to take a moment to reintroduce Charlotte who's the mastermind behind Vengerberg Glamarye, where she creates lore-accurate Witcher fragrances. So, when you and I first spoke, Charlotte, you first introduced me to the process and the complexities of your business. And I thought it was absolutely fascinating to just learn about all these things from you. And I wanted to invite you on and make sure that we talked about your business and all the cool things that you're doing.
CHARLOTTE: Well, thank you. Not a lot of people ask me this question. So, I'm actually really excited.
ALYSSA: I remember sitting on the phone with you. We have, like, a 20 to 30 minute phone call. When I asked you if you wanted to be on the podcast, I remember, you know, 20 minutes of that 30-minute call was just me, like, deeply engrossed in your process when it came to creating Vengerberg Glamarye.
CHARLOTTE: Oh.
ALYSSA: And I was, like, "Oh, I totally want to, like, hear this again and get it on record, because it's so neat."
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. And I don't get to talk about it very much, especially not to any form of listening audience. So, I'm looking forward to it.
ALYSSA: From what you've said to me, you have previous experience in creating fragrances before founding Vengerberg Glamarye. Can you tell us a little bit about the origin of that and then when and how did you decide to combine your experience with perfumery with your love for the Witcher universe?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, sure. As far as making perfumes goes and my personal history with it, I'd say about six years ago was when I first was exposed to the world of perfumery and making oils mainly. I actually used to work in a witch shop. It was a shop that provides wares and supplies for, like, the Wiccan and Pagan, and, you know, witch community where I live.
ALYSSA: That's so fascinating.
CHARLOTTE: It was definitely an interesting experience. It's a learning experience for sure. I, I’m just gonna preface this by saying that I, I don't “practice” as they say. I'm not – you know, I don't call myself a witch. It's not a religion for me, but it is for a lot of people.
ALYSSA: Mhmm.
CHARLOTTE: Paganism and Wicca, all these different forms of what, you know, most people would call witchcraft is, is a pretty old religion. So, basically, it was, like, working in, like, the Christian bookstore, but, like, like, for witches, you know.
ALYSSA: Oh, man, I'm familiar with those.
CHARLOTTE: And, you know, Christian bookstores, they sell you books. And they sell you, like, things you can hang on your wall and, you know, all these little trinkets and things that, like, make you seem more Christian or more witchy. We sold tools to help people focus on whatever it was they were doing.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: My main role at this shop was the oil production manager. So, it was my job to make and create ritual oils—
ALYSSA: Okay.
CHARLOTTE: —for the community. And these were oils that were designed to help people focus on specific things. So, we had, like, a money oil. If you were short on money or, like, working on a spell, the money oil is something that you can either wear on your person or use in your ritual work to help you focus your intention. And what's interesting about perfume is that olfactory memory—so, so, scent memory is a very, very, very strong aspect of memory retention.
ALYSSA: Mhmm.
CHARLOTTE: You know, you, you're going throughout your day and you wanna make sure you're remembering to think about, "Oh, I gotta get that money today." All you gotta do is just smell your wrist and, boom, you're remembering, “That's what money smells like.” That's how I got my experience making oils and making perfume. Now, most of the perfumes I made for this business were from a very large book. And I was basically just following old recipes. And, after a while, I started playing around. And they let me have a little more freedom. And they let me create my own oils to add into the collection that we were selling. And I had access to a vast fragrance library. Just imagine, like, multiple shelves of oils, essential oils, fragrance oils, resins, herbs, you know, solid materials like bone fragments, and beads, and crystals, and stuff. I had all this access to this stuff. As I was reading through the Witcher books, I also happened to be working at this shop. I started dabbling around with some of the oils I had access to. And, eventually, I purchased some of my own to work with at home. And that's kind of where I started. I got my training through this business and then I use that training to create something new.
ALYSSA: So, what was the moment where you decided to actually use the lore as an inspiration for a new venture?
CHARLOTTE: There's a really specific point in time in the books where I knew I wanted a particular fragrance. I think that most of the people that have read the books and played the games, they're all very familiar with Yennefer's fragrance, lilac and gooseberries.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: There's a whole song dedicated to it in the game, which is gorgeous. It's a big thing. When you read the books and you read the original content, you get a much broader picture of what Yennefer actually uses this fragrance for. And it's all encapsulated in this tiny little interaction in a passage in The Time of Contempt. Yennefer and Ciri are on their way to the City of Gors Velen, which is a city of sorceress and a city of magic. They're on their horses. They stopped at a hill overlooking the city. And, before they enter through the city gates, Yennefer has to prep herself. So, she sits on her horse. She arranges her hair over her forehead and she takes out a small green glass jar from her saddlebags. You know, throughout the story, you've been hearing about this, like, famous lilac and gooseberry scent, but you've never actually seen what it is she's using or how she uses it. You just know she smells like that. But it's clearly something that's very specific. So, she pulls out this green glass jar, and she uncorks the jar, which gives off the scent of lilac and gooseberries. And it was at this moment that I was like, "Oh, my god, that's the stuff. That's the stuff she's using! That’s what’s making her smell like that! Like, what the hell is that?”
CHARLOTTE: And, you know, it goes on to describe like, oh, she sticks her finger in this jar. And she rubs a little of it under her eyes. And she, like, rubs it on her face. And she, like, puts it on like a perfume. And then she turns back to Ciri. And Ciri is looking at her, and Yennefer just looks like a completely different person. Like, she looks like a goddess. Her eyes are glowing with violet light. Her face is radiating with beauty. She looks provocative. She looks dangerous and unnatural. And Ciri is sitting there with her, like, mouth open, because of Yennefer's beauty. And she's like, "The little green jar. What was in it?" And, like, and I was, like, "Yes. You know, what was in it? I, what, what is that stuff?" And this is where we find out what it is. And Yennefer is just, like, "It's Glamarye. It's an elixir or rather a cream for special occasions."
CHARLOTTE: What was interesting about this to me was that, clearly, it's something that sorceresses use for "special occasions." But the special occasion in this case was actually really interesting. It wasn't just so that she'd look pretty for going into the city. In the books, the author goes on to explain and Yennefer goes on to explain that she's using it to distract people from looking at Ciri.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: Because Ciri is the most important thing. Ciri is the thing she's trying to conceal here. And, you know, Ciri is, like, “I want to use some. I want to use some of that. I want to be pretty.” And Yennefer is just, like, “No. You are to be invisible. And I am to be your camo.” They ride up to the gate, and nobody even sees Ciri because everyone is so transfixed by this, like, glowing goddess who's, like, wafting lilac and gooseberry all over everybody. It's just like she just walks right through the gate.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: The guards try to stop her. And she's like, "Oh, what? What?" She just, like, wafts perfume over or near them. And they're like, "Oh, you go right ahead beautiful lady." They just, like, waltz right in. No problem. So, it was, at this point, that I'm, like, I gotta have some of that. I want some of that. Like, I need to, I need to find this thing if it exists.
ALYSSA: Yeah. And how did that search go?
CHARLOTTE: Well, I went online—
ALYSSA: Of course.
CHARLOTTE: —as one does.
ALYSSA: The Googles!
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. I was, like, let's Google this. Let's see if I can find some of this Glamarye. And let's see if someone's making it, because like, if they're making it, I'm gonna throw my money at them because I want it. I want to smell like that. And I couldn't really find anything. There are definitely some other companies, you know, making Witcher-inspired fragrances and perfumes.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: But none of them were as it was described in the book. You know, because it was described very specifically. I didn't want a liquid perfume. I didn't want, like, a bar soap or anything like that. So, I was like, if it doesn't exist already, then I'll just make one. I'll just make it for myself.
ALYSSA: I love it.
CHARLOTTE: That's pretty much how, how I started that first fragrance. I was just making it for myself.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: And it took me about a year.
ALYSSA: Which is wild.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. It took me a long time. Lots and lots of trial and error. And I was just making Yennefer’s at this point. That was really all I was focused on. It was just this lilac and gooseberry creme.
ALYSSA: Yeah. And you told me a little bit about why it takes this process so long too? Would you be able to tell us about that?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, definitely. So, working with fragrances is interesting and difficult and really frustrating, because, after a while, if you've been working with a fragrance for a long time, you can't smell it anymore.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: Your, your nose just kind of gets overwhelmed. There are ways that you can mitigate this effect. Some people use coffee beans or ground coffee—
ALYSSA: Okay.
CHARLOTTE: —to kind of clear out your nose. It's kind of like an olfactory palate cleanser. You just, like, snort some coffee, and it, like, gets it up in there. And then it sort of like clears everything else out. But, after a while, even the coffee stops working.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: You can't even smell the coffee anymore.
ALYSSA: It's so fascinating.
CHARLOTTE: Yes. You have to give your fragrances time away from you.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: I'd have a ratio of fragrances. I'd have a trial creme, you know, put together. And it would smell really good to me that day. And then I would close it up, put it away, and I have to wait like three to four days before I come back to it, open it, and smell it again.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: It has to be like I'm smelling it for the first time every time I open it, because that's how my customers are going to smell it.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: It's difficult to phase it out. So, there were many, many, many trials and many errors and many failures. I'll put it that way. I wasted a lot of supplies trying to make Yennefer’s. With the help of my friends who have been indispensable, because they're extra noses, right? They're not working with fragrance all day. My poor friends. You know, anyone that would come over to my house, I'm like, "Hey. Hey. Smell this thing." And I will stick it in the face and be like, "What do you think about that?"
ALYSSA: Just fragrance pushing.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. No. Seriously, anyone who comes over to my house, I'm like, "Hey, you want to smell this thing I got?" Like, I have my own weird little fragrance library in my kitchen. Like, I hope you guys all know I make all of these out of my kitchen. Like --
ALYSSA: We love a home cook.
CHARLOTTE: Like, I make it out of my kitchen. I have a tiny little table and, like, some shelves,. Yeah. It takes a long time. And it takes a lot of trial and error.
ALYSSA: The first time you told me about it, I remember sitting in the phone booth at work just with this huge grin on my face being completely in awe of the amount of, you know, effort and behind-the-scenes work that goes into making something that, you know, I can absolutely attest to, is so specific to the lore. And it is absolutely spot on.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, thank you.
ALYSSA: Yeah. When I reached out to Charlotte, I asked her what she would recommend from her product line. She has four things, and I bought three of them. And, when they got delivered, they were just so beautifully packaged. Like, everything had been so thought through and considered from the branding that had been done, and the way that it had been put together. And you get this beautiful wax-sealed glass jar and this leather holding pouch. I was so excited to get it. And I, like, ran upstairs with my little box of Vengerberg Glamarye. And, you know, I just sat there for the longest time just uncorking them, smelling them, recorking them, uncorking them, smelling them, and recorking them. Before I read the books, I had no idea what a gooseberry was. Like, I live, I live in New York. I've no idea what a gooseberry is. It wasn't until, you know, I started making content of my own, and, like, I, like, googled them. And they just look like really funny grapes.
CHARLOTTE: They look like veiny, veiny grapes.
ALYSSA: They look like, if a grape tried to camouflage itself as a watermelon, that's what a gooseberry looks like to me. Obviously, you hear the phrase lilac and gooseberries everywhere in the Witcher universe. I just find them so beautiful. And I think that you absolutely nailed it with Yennefer's.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, thank you.
ALYSSA: Yeah. You've since expanded your product line as well.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Yennefer isn't the only sorceress that Geralt goes around sniffing. That's for sure. He definitely comes into contact with a lot of other fragrant ladies.
ALYSSA: What an oddball.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah. So another one that I really wanted to make was Philippa. You know, it's sort of like a lesser known character I guess. You know, she's referenced in a couple of the games. Her character design in the game I thought was pretty cool.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: But, you know, she plays kind of a larger role in the book series. At one point, Geralt is in very close proximity to Philippa.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: He actually gets to smell her perfume.
ALYSSA: Mhmm.
CHARLOTTE: During this period of time, he's actually blindfolded. So, he's actually relying very heavily on his other Witcher sense to sort of give him an idea of what's going on. He recognizes Philippa entering the room based on what her perfume smells like. This is another one where like, you know, you said you'd never heard of a gooseberry before. You didn't know what it was. Philippa is described as smelling like cinnamon, muskroot, and baking powder. I didn't add the baking powder in. That doesn't really smell like anything. I think that's just to illustrate how keen his sense of smell is.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: But I didn't know what muskroot was. I was like, "What the hell is that?" I don't even know what that is. I had to, like, do so much research. It has several different names. It's an oil that actually exists in real life. For example, lilacs don't distill well into, like, a natural essential oil.
ALYSSA: Okay.
CHARLOTTE: Lilac essential oil is not something that exists.
ALYSSA: Huh.
CHARLOTTE: You can maybe do a distillation of lilacs, which is sort of, you know, it's like a floral water, but it's very ephemeral. It doesn't last long. It's a very delicate compound. And it's extremely expensive and difficult to make. There are some fragrances that don't exist naturally that are referenced in the Witcher series.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: I do have a lot of people ask me, you know, “Do you only use natural oils in your product?” And, you know, unfortunately, the answer is no, but it is a mixture of both natural oils and fragrance oils. Essential oils are natural. Fragrance oils are not. They're synthesized.
ALYSSA: Oh, that's interesting. I don’t—I wouldn't have known that.
CHARLOTTE: So, both lilac and gooseberry are fragrances that don't exist naturally. But cinnamon and muskroot are both natural essential oils. And muskroot is a variety of Valerian. It's a type of Himalayan Valerian that only grows I think in China, in Nepal, and India.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: Although, when I did, when I did some other research, I think it sometimes grows in North America too at, like, higher altitudes.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: But it's a, it’s a very interesting and very expensive oil. It has a long history behind it. It was used in biblical times to, like, anoint Jesus' feet or something.
ALYSSA: Dope.
CHARLOTTE: Don't, don't quote me on that. But it goes by a lot of different names. It goes by muskroot, spikenard, nardin. It goes by nard. Lots of different names for this oil. Just in that, I was really hyped to work on Philippa’s.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: So, I was like, all right, I got some essential oils. These things actually exist. And they're, like, crazy. They're really interesting.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: So, yeah, I made one for Philippa. Some other ones that are out of the book were Lytta. She smells of, you know, freesia and apricots. Triss was kind of more of a fan-pleaser. I hate to say it, but it's true. Because, oddly enough, despite the fact that Geralt gets real cozy with Triss, there's no description of what she smells like. I was disappointed. I was like, "What, what is this?"
ALYSSA: I mean... Geralt's relationship with Triss, you never see it in the books. It's referenced to very, very, very briefly in a couple of passing lines, almost in snide remarks from different characters that, yes, it happened. But it was definitely something that I think bloomed into its own in the world that CD Projekt Red created.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah, definitely. I think that actually may have been intentional on the author's part. I mean Geralt clearly doesn't feel the same way. He doesn't feel the same way at all.
ALYSSA: Right. Right.
CHARLOTTE: And, in the books, Triss is just, like, all over him. And he's just like, "No, I'm not really into it right now." So, maybe he just didn't care what she smelled like. Maybe he just didn't smell her. I don't know. But, you know, Triss, the strawberry and rose, it's just kind of a sweet sort of cloying fragrance. It's nice. It's fruity. It's floral. You know, it's kind of a youthful fragrance.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: It doesn't smell like candy or anything, which is something that I was really trying to veer away from.
ALYSSA: Yeah. I mean that's the only one that, like, I personally don't have. I got Yennefer's, Philippa's, and Lytta's. The one that I use the most really is Yennefer's. I... that's the one that I go to every time. And then I find Lytta's to be like – when I first smelled it, I remember out of the recesses of my brain just being like, "This smells like summer." I think I got these delivered sometime in the middle of winter. And I was just fantasizing like, "This will be my summer scent."
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. To me, it just reminds me of, like, eating apricots outside. I really liked the way that one turned out. It definitely made my mouth water. Sapkowski does this thing where he's just like – with his female characters, he's just like, "All right. Fruit and a flower. Okay. You're a fruit and also a flower." I guess that's all the rage in the Witcher World right now. It's for women to smell like fruits and flowers.
ALYSSA: As I was thinking of a name for the podcast, I was researching every single inn that was mentioned in the books. And, every single one, it's an adjective and an animal. An adjective and an animal. And, like, I'm, like, if you – I guess, if you have a formula, you just stick to it.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I guess so. Like Philippa was the only deviation. Hers is actually one of my personal favorites. I love Yennefer's as well. I mean I wore Yennefer's as my own fragrance before I started selling it.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: I had my little jar. I had my own personal little jar. It was just mine and it was all for me. That was the one I actually wore the most. It was funny, because, when I was wearing it before I decided to offer it to other people, people were commenting on it.
ALYSSA: Like strangers?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah! Just random people. My partner was trying to get me to sell it after I had made it. But I was like, "Oh, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I can handle that.” Or, you know, whatever, whatever I was saying at the time.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: We were visiting my family in New Jersey. And we were sitting on this, on this shuttle bus from the train station. It was just me and my partner and these two little old women. I had just put on a little bit of the lilac and gooseberry creme, just a little bit on my wrists. And this little old lady in the front of the bus turns to her friend and just says, like, very loudly, "I smell lilacs!" Just, like, very loudly, like, very specifically. And she was like, "It's the middle of winter! There's no lilacs blooming around here. Where is that coming from?" And, like, my partner is, like, looking at me, like, really pointedly, and, like, elbowing me, and be like, "Hey, say that it's you. Come on, say that it's you."
ALYSSA: Oh, I love that.
CHARLOTTE: And I was like, "Oh, I don't know. I'm too shy." And, so, he's like, "It's her." He, like, points at me. “She's the one that smells like lilacs.” And, so, these little old women like, you know, totter to the back of the bus, like, while the bus is moving. She comes up to me, and she's like, "What is that? I need to know what that is." And, so, I pull out, you know, my little green jar with my, like, crappy little wax seal on it. And she just looks me dead in the face, and she's like, "You should sell that." And I was like, "Okay, thanks little old lady." She was like, "No, really." And I was like, "Oki-doki then." Like, and, you know, some time goes by, I come back to North Carolina. I'm working three or four jobs at the time. I was working at the witch shop. I was working at a sushi bar. And I was a zip line guide. So, I was, you know, taking people on—
ALYSSA: Oh, woah.
CHARLOTTE: —fantasy tours through the trees. I was just trying to make as much money as possible. Just hustling, you know. I'm working at the sushi bar. I like to wear this fragrance every now and then when I'm working, because, you know, I don't want to smell like dishwater all the time. I put this perfume on at the end of my shift. And I walked past the sushi chefs at the bar. One of the sushi chefs comes up to me. And he's like, "I have been smelling this fragrance throughout the restaurant all night. And I can't figure out what it is. Are you wearing some kind of perfume?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "What is it?" And, so, I, like, pull it out of my purse, and I show it to him. And he opens it up, and he smells, and this is a person that has no knowledge of “The Witcher.” They don't know anything about it. They don't care what it's based on, or where it's from, or anything. And this guy was like, "How much do you want for it?" And I was just like, "Aaah." And I didn't even have, like, another bottle. I just had my own.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: I was like, "Well, I'd have to buy another bottle, and, you know, mix one up for you." He's like, "How much do you want for it? I want it for my wife for our wedding anniversary."
ALYSSA: Oh, that's so sweet.
CHARLOTTE: I know. And I was like, "Whoa." And, at the time, you know, I didn't have any packaging or really any idea of what I wanted to sell it for.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: That was my first sale right there.
ALYSSA: That's just such a good story. And you probably made love happen that night.
CHARLOTTE: I—oh, yeah, definitely. Mhmm. They got, they got down with it probably. You know what the glamarye does.
ALYSSA: So, coming out of your first sale, how did you scale your business into what it is today? Like what was the reception when you started shopping around your product and building this little Vengerberg Glamarye empire from the ground up?
CHARLOTTE: When I realized that other people might actually want it, it sort of dawned on me that there were other Witcher fans out there.
ALYSSA: Oh, shit, that's me!
CHARLOTTE: I had to deal with a lot of coaxing from my partner or from my friends, because I was really nervous about it.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: You put yourself out there. You open yourself up to a lot of criticism, to failure, and it's a risk. And, certainly, I had to invest a lot of time and a good bit of money.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: For me to invest in expanding my business, it was kind of scary. So, I realized I was gonna have to scale up if I wanted to put it online and really get it out there.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: So, yeah, how was I going to package it? How was I going to source all the materials for everything? How much that was going to cost me? And, like, if it was going to balance out. And I wanted a lot of detail to go into the packaging.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: So, I wanted the fragrance to be something that was high quality, and something that people wanted to wear. But it also wanted the packaging to be aesthetically pleasing, accurate to the books that says “a little green jar,” and this is how it has to be packaged. I was very particular about it.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: And it’s said that it was stored in Yennefer's saddlebags. So, I was like, "All right. Well, saddlebags are typically made out of leather."
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: You know, wouldn't it be nice to pull this little fantasy product out of a little leather bag. I wanted the whole thing to look like, you know, that it wouldn't look out of place in the Witcher universe at all. That's where the idea for, like, the little leather pouch came in—
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: —in addition to sort of protecting it and, like, keeping it safe during the shipping process. So, I had to figure out how I was going to do that. You know, I don't have leather working tools. And working with leather is time consuming and expensive. So, I actually sourced my little leather bags from another Etsy seller. It's a pretty small time business. And their shop name is Geppetto's Hands on Etsy. They're the ones that make the little leather pouches. And they use recycled leather. Like, bits and scraps of leather and recycle them into the bags. So, they're not, like, sourcing it.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: It's high quality leather for the most part. And they have really good consistency with their product. Scaling up the business, it was intimidating. It was quite a lot of money and time and mental strain. But, with the help of my partner, and of my friends, and my family—
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: —I was able to do it. They were all really supportive. So, my partner helped design my logo, which I'm really happy about.
ALYSSA: Which is so beautiful. Like – and I think it captures all the symbolism of what Vengerberg Glamarye could and should stand for so beautifully.
CHARLOTTE: Thank you. I really like it. It's a variation on a Pennsylvania hex sign. Kind of an old school design that I've sort of revamped. I stuck a little pentagram in there.
ALYSSA: Unicorns.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, those unicorns in there. And, of course, the unicorn, right? Like, anybody who's read the books or played the games knows how Yennefer feels about her unicorns.
ALYSSA: Her singular unicorn.
CHARLOTTE: Mhmm. I feel like it fits right in there. I was very pleased with how everything turned out.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: My first few sales online received really positive feedback. So, I was like, "All right. I must be doing something right."
ALYSSA: And you absolutely are.
CHARLOTTE: I hope so.
ALYSSA: They're so beautiful and so specific to the lore. You know, every time I open it up, I'm like, one, it just smells beautiful. Even if you're not familiar with the lore, they're just beautiful scents, like, flat out. If you are familiar with the lore, they just add on this wonderful real world element. And you have put so much thought and detail into how these things are made. And, and I'm like, "Oh, you're right. Like, they did come in saddlebags. And like, of course, you put them in a leather pouch, because, of course, that's how specific you can go with the lore.” Like, you've done such a wonderful job of bringing these very abstract descriptions of people and insight into the Witcher universe out into our own worlds. And I just think it's absolutely incredible.
CHARLOTTE: Thank you so much.
ALYSSA: I love it. So, before Charlotte and I sat down to record I reached out to our GoodMorhen community to ask if they had any questions for her. First off, how would you recommend people use these fragrances?
CHARLOTTE: This is a creme perfume. It's a highly scented creme or lotion. I wouldn't recommend using it like you would a regular body lotion.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: I wouldn't use it as a moisturizer per se, because it is highly, highly, highly fragranced. So, the way I'd recommend implementing it in your day-to-day routine would be to use it sort of in the same way you would use scent oil perfume. And, by that, I mean you take a little bit of it onto your finger and you can dab it on areas of your body that are naturally quite warm. So, typically, with perfumes, you apply them to your pulse points.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: So, areas where your skin is quite thin and where it's naturally very warm. So, the inside of the wrists, the inside of the elbows, either side of your neck sort of where your arteries are and then underneath your jawline. Or, you can apply it in little dabs to the back of your knees.
ALYSSA: Oh, that's interesting.
CHARLOTTE: And that's sort of traditionally where, where people will apply oil perfumes. If you find that it's not strong enough, you can always just apply more of it. Do be aware that, as I was saying before, when you smell a fragrance for a period of time, you're going to get used to it.
ALYSSA: Uh huh.
CHARLOTTE: It'll fade for you, but, people around you, they should still be able to smell it on you.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: You may not need to, like, continually reapply it as often as you originally think. Test it out on your friends. I've had customers tell me that, you know, they've applied a small amount. And it has lasted, you know, upwards of six hours.
ALYSSA: Oh, wow.
CHARLOTTE: Which is crazy to me, because, like, the longest I've had it last on me personally is maybe about four or five hours before I felt, you know, the need to reapply or before I asked my friends, you know, "Hey, can you still smell this?"
ALYSSA: Uhmm.
CHARLOTTE: I would just kind of experiment with where you place it on your body and how much you use. And, also, your body chemistry can affect how long the fragrance lasts and how it smells.
ALYSSA: Interesting.
CHARLOTTE: So, just keep that in mind. Like, the natural oils on your skin and your natural fragrance, like, alters the way fragrances smell. Yeah. I did have a customer say that it faded very quickly on her. And it, or the fragrance was altered in some way when they put it on. And, unfortunately, that's just kind of par for the course with perfume. I don't recommend rubbing it. I would just sort of dab it and pat it into your skin.
ALYSSA: Whoops.
CHARLOTTE: Well, well, I mean you can if you want to. You can rub it if you want to.
ALYSSA: I mean, I'm learning right now. So, I'm happy.
CHARLOTTE: So, so, rubbing perfume of any kind, not just creme perfume but oil or sprays… perfume is designed to interact with the heat of your skin. If you rub a perfume into your skin, what you're doing is you're breaking down the fragrance molecules much more quickly. And you're actually heating it up to a point that's much warmer than your natural body heat. It can alter the fragrance to rub it into your skin as well. I would recommend just dabbing it on and patting it into your skin, and just putting it on those warm areas of your body. A long answer but—
ALYSSA: No. That's, that's really detailed and really helpful for people like me who just slather it on.
CHARLOTTE: No. It's, it's fine. I mean you do you. You know, you do you. Whatever works.
ALYSSA: I'm, for sure, guilty of just being like, "Oh, I'll just put a little bit of my wrists,” and then it journeys up to my face and up to my, like, collarbones and then like, “Oh, god, it's everywhere."
CHARLOTTE: Hey, I mean I've definitely slathered it on myself too. And I'm definitely guilty of having, like, rubbed other perfumes like roll ons. Like, rubbing my wrists together like, "Oh, yeah," you know.
ALYSSA: Yes.
CHARLOTTE: Like, trying to get it warmer for some reason. But, as I was learning more and more about perfumery and, like, the chemistry that goes into it, that's one of the things I learned. And I was like, "Oh, okay. It's like that. All right."
ALYSSA: We got a question from one of our followers, JackieTaki: will there be more fragrances inspired by other characters in the future?
CHARLOTTE: The answer is yes, definitely. Like, I was saying, Geralt gets that nose into quite a lot of ladies and sniffs a lot of different people throughout the book series. I'm mainly trying to focus on scents that are described in the books.
ALYSSA: Right.
CHARLOTTE: The next one that I've been working on, I'm just going to apologize in advance to everybody who's been waiting for it. It's been, like, a year and some months since I started working on it.
ALYSSA: But it’s fine, because now our listeners are educated on why it takes so long to come up with a perfume. So, everyone is very understanding of the work that's been going into this.
CHARLOTTE: I hope so. Thank you all very much for your patience and understanding. The next one that I have lined up to release is Ciri. Her fragrance is only described once in the books. And it is actually when she's a very small child and when she first meets Geralt in Brokilon. This is one that stumped me, because I was like, "How am I going to make a lore-accurate perfume that smells like this. It's kind of a complicated one.”
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: In the books, she's described as smelling to him like a damp swallow. So, like a wet bird. So, I'll just leave you guys to ponder on that one, but I'm almost done developing it. I'm pretty happy with what I've got right now.
ALYSSA: Well, I'm really excited. I'm sure everyone would be really excited to try it out when it releases.
CHARLOTTE: If you want to smell like a wet bird, you know who to call.
ALYSSA: Are there any other characters other than Ciri?
CHARLOTTE: Yes. Ciri is the only one I'm actively working on right now. But, once I get hers out and in the shop, I have a few others lined up; Fringilla Vigo, Essi Daven, Little Eye. And then there's another character who's very, very, very minor named Tiziana. I've had some requests for Margarita Laux-Antille, although I have no memory of her being described.
ALYSSA: I feel like she would just smell strongly of wine and sauna.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Like, I could work with that. If it's requested and there's enough requests for it, then it may be worth it to go outside of the ones that are described. But, for now, that's what I got in the pipeline.
ALYSSA: It's incredible to see how you not only capture the scent, but also the essence of the character. Like, this abstract personality into this very tangible object that we can then enjoy. It's really wonderful and really exciting. The next question that we had came from Cyprian. And Cyprian is going to be our guest for the next two episodes, Episode Three and Episode Four covering “The Lesser Evil” and “A Question of Price.” And his question is if you have any plans on making a men's line.
CHARLOTTE: This is actually a question I've gotten before. I want to do this. I kind of want to get all the ones that I have in my mind out into the shop before I sort of venture in complete creative freedom, where I'm just kind of making stuff up. And that's kind of where the men's fragrances live right now. It's just like the Make It Up Realm. Okay. If I wanted to go, like, real accurate—like, real accurate, like a Geralt fragrance. I don't know. Do you really want to smell like blood and—
ALYSSA: Just dirty Witcher sweat.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. I mean, like Roach, you know.
ALYSSA: Awww.
CHARLOTTE: Do you want to smell like a dirty horse? Anytime Geralt's fragrance is described, that's what it is. It's like, "Oh, you reek of the blood of men and elves and monsters."
ALYSSA: You're right. There's this quote from Yen, and I believe it's from the short stories. It just came into mind. So, apologies if it's incorrect. I remember her telling Geralt he needs to bathe. Judging from the smell, she can tell the color and breed of his horse.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
ALYSSA: And, like, that's not cute. You're not getting any lovin’ from that.
CHARLOTTE: I mean, like, I understand the question of the men's line. I have a few fragrances in my library that lend themselves well to masculine fragrances despite the fact that these fragrances are based on female characters. To me, fragrance in general isn't really gendered.
ALYSSA: Yeah, for sure.
CHARLOTTE: Philippa's is definitely one that's "more unisex" if you didn't really want to smell like a fruit and a flower, you know. I mean like, if a guy came up to me smelling like lilacs and gooseberries, I'd be like, "Wow. You smell good." But, on that note, I've got some fun stuff I've been playing with. Birch tar, it's extremely difficult to work with. But it smells like a campfire.
ALYSSA: Ooh. That's interesting.
CHARLOTTE: So, yes, Cyprian. Yes, at some point, but not right now. Try wearing Yennefer's. It's great.
ALYSSA: So, we had one last question that came in through Instagram and a bunch of people were asking about batch sizes. What do you think about larger or smaller versions of your Vengerberg Glamarye?
CHARLOTTE: So, I've had the question of sample sizes asked pretty often. Most perfume makers sell, like, little vials of their perfume so that people can test it out before purchasing the whole thing, which makes a lot of sense.
ALYSSA: “Scents.” Hahaha.
CHARLOTTE: Hahaha. Ba dum tss.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: Oh, you caught that one. And then I—yeah. It's obviously a good idea if you have a liquid perfume, but I have a creme perfume. And I have run into several problems with trying to package this in smaller amounts while retaining, like, the products integrity and quality. I actually tried to do sample sizes for a minute there. I got these, like, tiny little plastic jars. And I was just putting in any sort of extra creme that was leftover from the making process. But it turns out, when you have a creme in such a small amount in a little plastic container that is not absolutely airtight—
ALYSSA: Yeah.
CHARLOTTE: —the creme congeals, and it solidifies. This worked for a little while, but it wasn't something that was sustainable. Once it gets to you in a small size like that, it's not gonna smell or feel or look the same. If anybody has any suggestions for how I could possibly do a sample of a creme.
ALYSSA: Ooh, well, that's a good task for our community for sure.
CHARLOTTE: And, larger sizes, the ratios that I have worked out for the perfume is for a very specific size of container. And I can scale this up, but I would have to purchase an entirely different form of packaging to make that happen. And, honestly, I haven't had enough requests to make it feasible.
ALYSSA: Yeah. I mean it's, it's nice to be able to share with people, like, your future plans for Vengerberg Glamarye as well as to go behind the scenes of everything that goes into making such a wonderful product.
CHARLOTTE: What's next? You know, I'm really hyped about the Netflix series. And, honestly, I'm just excited that an entire new demographic of people is going to be introduced to this story. And they're going to read the books, too.
ALYSSA: I'm really excited to see our communities grow. I think both of us wouldn't be doing what we're doing if we didn't have a genuine love for the original content. And for the world and for the lore.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, absolutely.
ALYSSA: I'm really looking forward to seeing what's going to happen when the Netflix series comes out. And, you know, the kind of people that it attracts and the possibility of bringing the Witcher universe into, kind of, like, greater conversation and into pop culture. Like, I'm getting, like, chills thinking about it.
CHARLOTTE:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a thing for sure. I’m, like, how do I get my little jar on that show though? Like, Anya!
ALYSSA: Anya. Darling, if you're listening... let Charlotte know.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Let me know. A complimentary jar, Anya!
ALYSSA: So, that's it for our show today. Charlie, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation and for this episode. And thank you to our community for listening. Before we let you go, where can people find you? And is there anything that our little international hanza can help you with?
CHARLOTTE: Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me to participate in this little podcast. I've been really excited about it. And I've been trying really hard not to tell everybody I know about it, because I didn't want to spoil anything. Yeah. Thanks to the community. If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't even have a business. And you guys can find me on Instagram, Vengerberg Glamarye on Instagram. I also have a little website. The website has nicer pictures of my products than Etsy does. And it also has better descriptions. It has information on how to store your products and how to make it last longer. So, my website is just glamarye.com.
ALYSSA: Which is a huge power move.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Yeah. I did that early on. I was, like, I'm just gonna be taking that right there. Glamarye.com, that's mine. But, yeah, I mean, if you guys have any suggestions, you know, I love getting feedback from people. All the feedback I've gotten so far has been so positive and so supportive. Thank you all so, so much for your support of my tiny, tiny, tiny little business. It means so much to me. Thank you.
ALYSSA: Oh, I love it. I feel like I'm, like, bubbling up with, like, good feels. Charlotte has been so wonderful, and so patient, and so supportive of me. Like, that, you know, really early on when I first started GoodMorhen, you know, back when I was, like, a month in. I don't even know if you found me or if I find you. But we started sharing each other's work. And then you just had so much patience with me as I'm pulling together this podcast. I will slide into Charlotte's DMs at, like, 1:00 in the morning being like, "Hey, uh, what do you think of this podcast name?" And you've just been so integral, just like a wonderful sounding board as I've been kind of taking this idea from my own head and actually bringing it to life. And I'm really glad that we're kind of creating this wonderful little network of Witcher content creators. And it makes me so happy and fuzzy inside.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. It's been my pleasure. Your content is some top-grade stuff. I mean, if anybody listening isn't already following you, they really should because I love your Instagram. It's phenomenal. I repost stuff in there all the time. Just like, "Hey, you guys should go follow her. She's amazing."
ALYSSA: It's such a wonderful community. And I – like, I feel really grateful to be a part of it and to have found you through it. Thank you for joining me. And thank you to everyone for listening. So, next episode we're gonna hop over to Berlin for a chat with our friend, Cyprian, to learn how Geralt earned the nickname “The Butcher of Blaviken” in the short story “The Lesser Evil.”
CHARLOTTE: Woo!
Outro & CRedits
[Breakfast in Beauclair theme music by MojoFilter Media]
ALYSSA: Thanks for joining us at the breakfast table! For show notes, transcripts of each episode, and a complete list of our social platforms and listening services, head over to breakfastinbeauclair.com.
Breakfast in Beauclair is created by Alyssa from GoodMorhen. It’s hosted by Alyssa with the “Tidings from Toussaint” News Segment by Lars from WitcherFlix. The show is edited by Alyssa with Audio Production by MojoFilter Media. Breakfast in Beauclair theme by MojoFilter Media and the “Tidings from Toussaint” theme by Bettina Campomanes.
Breakfast in Beauclair is produced by Alyssa in New York City.
Special thanks to Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye for joining us for this episode and our international hanza for their support.
Remember—as part of the Breakfast in Beauclair international hanza, receive an exclusive discount on your next purchase of glamarye. Use code “HANZA” for 10% off your purchase at Vengerberg Glamarye through the end of September 2019. Visit glamarye.com or find Vengerberg Glamarye on Etsy to make your purchase.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil