The Law of Surprise
A debt paid not in gold, but in the destiny of an unknown child.
The Law of Surprise is the custom by which Geralt of Rivia is bound to Ciri. In "A Question of Price", Duny, the Urcheon of Erlenwald, claims Princess Pavetta's hand through the Law of Surprise, having saved her father's life several years earlier; Geralt then invokes the same law and so, without knowing it, demands the couple's unborn child as his reward.
Quick Facts
- Key practitioner
- Geralt of Rivia
Lore & Background
At first Geralt does not take the child, because traditionally women were not witchers. Fate makes their paths cross twice more: in Sword of Destiny he exacts the Law of Surprise from the merchant Yurga, whom he saves from monsters, and so claims Ciri a second time. Geralt himself says that he was abandoned by his sorceress mother, not claimed by the witchers' Law of Surprise, and that he does not believe in destiny.
Reader's Guide
Sapkowski based "A Question of Price" and later "Sword of Destiny" on the universally known fairy tale in which a monster or sorcerer saves somebody's life and then demands payment; the Law of Surprise mirrors a similar law in the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. In the Netflix series, Geralt jokingly invokes the law for something Duny has but does not yet know, and in 1263, with Nilfgaard poised to invade Cintra, he decides to claim Ciri to protect her.
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