"Geralt is a witcher, and witchers are mutants. They are inhuman monsters, so why would anyone want to become one? Andrzej Sapkowski takes the word "witcher" from the Polish wiedźmin. But a better way to think about the word is to see its parallel with "wiccan," a person believed to practice magic. And of course, many such persons were really burned alive out of the thought that they were inhuman, satanic monsters"-- Provided by publisher.