UPDATE 1st June: There’s been some good, additional sleuthing into the identity of the sword Geralt is holding in The Songs of the Past artwork, related to what’s discussed below. And as we now know from a CD Projekt Red livestream, “it is a very important sword for the story”, so its identity likely provides a vital clue about the adventure we’re going on.
The suggestion from Neon Knight’s well-researched video is that this sword is Melltith – a sword that’s already in the game. This sword doesn’t have the swirly decorative golden embellishment to its crossguard, but the base of the blade, the crossguard itself and – perhaps most importantly – the flower-like pommel at the very bottom, are nearly identical.
The sword Melltith, the current frontrunner in the ‘it’s that sword!’ discussion. The swirly crossguard decoration is not there, but the rest of the design is very, very close. | Image credit: Neon Knight
Why is the pommel so important? Because as Neon Knight pointed out, this is a quintessentially elven piece of sword design – you can apparently find it on five other elven swords in The Witcher 3 game. Assuming this is an elven sword, then, it strengthens rumours that Songs of the Past is set in Cidaris (a region and a city mentioned below) because Cidaris was apparently built on the ruins of an elven city.
The elven link is strengthened even further because “Belleteyn”, the festival referenced by the artwork – that CD Projekt Red has now highlighted in its livestream does drop hints about Songs of the Past – is part of the elven calendar in The Witcher lore. The elves carve the year up into eight segments and Belleteyn is one of them.
The artwork potentially contains another clue I didn’t notice before as well: the shadowy claw-hand of a monster emerging from the tree behind Geralt – just up from his left shoulder. This looks an awful lot like the hand of the tree-monster in the Songs of the Past artwork, and it being placed by a tree surely isn’t a coincidence.
Here’s that suspicious clawed hand in the Belleteyn artwork. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red
And here’s the Songs of the Past artwork showing the tree monster and its clawed hand, which I’ve ringed in red. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red
But what is the monster in the Belleteyn artwork? Probably not a Leshen, the skull-headed and antlered forest spirit we’re familiar with from The Witcher 3, because while they’re both wooded, they don’t look the same. It could be a variation, sure, but there’s a potentially better fit in a treant or oakcritter from Witcher Lore.
Neon Knight highlights that these are described in The Witcher book Tower of the Swallow as being “a gigantic tree, a branching, ancient oak”, and having a “hollow gaping” in their trunk, which is probably a mouth or maw of some kind. And in the Songs of the Past artwork, there does appear to be a hole in the trunk of that monster.
That’s it for now. We’ll find out more later in the summer, we’ve been told.
ORIGINAL STORY 28th May: A third Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, was only announced yesterday, but it appears we’ve seen the sword Geralt unsheaths in the artwork before.
Roughly a month ago, on 30th April, CD Projekt Red shared artwork and a poem celebrating the Gaelic festival of Beltane, or Belleteyn as the company called it – a festival which marks the beginning of summer. In the picture, we see the eponymous witcher Geralt sitting, leant against a tree, while his bardic friend Dandelion serenades nearby nighttime revellers.
CD Projekt Red’s ‘Belleteyn’ artwork. Note the swords by Geralt’s side in the bottom left. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red
On first inspection there’s not much more to see, but look closer in the bottom left of the image, by Geralt’s side and underneath the words “Have a magical Belleteyn”, and you’ll see two sheathed swords, and one of these has an unusually ornate crossguard, visible even in this area of painted dark.
The sword has a multilayered crossguard. There’s a more functional and robust V-shaped crossguard overlaid by a golden, swooping, swirling decoration of sorts. It’s a design that like-for-like matches the sword Geralt holds in the Songs of the Past expansion artwork. Reddit user Kasavir created a helpful overlay image for side-by-side comparison.
Reddit user Kasavir’s helpful comparison image. | Image credit: Kasavir / CD Projekt Red
Given the outlandish and unique design of the sword, the chances of this being a coincidence are extremely small. This is backed up by realising this piece of ‘Belleteyn’ artwork was produced barely a month before the expansion’s official announcement, so the artists involved would have been well aware of its significance. But is there anything more than an a-ha ‘we hid it in plain sight’ Easter egg going on here?
There could be. There is some speculation whirring around that Songs of the Past takes place in the coastal kingdom of Cidaris, which is underneath Redania and close to Skelige – areas from the base Witcher 3 game. Cidaris is also a region where Dandelion (known as Jaskier in the books) is thought to come from, so should the “Songs” in the Songs of the Past title refer to him, as a bard, then maybe this previously issued artwork offers us a snapshot of what’s to come.
Everything else depends on the significance of the sword itself, and much has been made of it after the expansion announcement because, well, there’s not much else to go on. The overwhelming thought seems to be Geralt is holding Ciri’s Witcher 4 sword, but while there is a close resemblance, I’ve studied the recent Witcher 4 trailers and can confidently say they’re not the same weapon.
CD Projekt Red has even released stills from The Witcher 4 announcement trailer that show Ciri’s blade in detail, so you can clearly see the differences.
You can clearly see in The Witcher 4 announcement trailer that the hilts are different, and that the blade itself, while similarly notched, is different as well. Ciri’s actual sword has three curved-notches whereas there are only two in the Songs of the Past artwork, and her sword has an area at the base of the blade cut out, whereas the sword in the Songs of the Past artwork does not. The Unreal demo of Witcher 4 from last summer also shows the hilt, perhaps more clearly, where you can see the differences. Ciri does not draw the blade in this demonstration, though.
If not Ciri’s sword, then, what’s the significance of it? There are some people who’ve suggested the sword is already in The Witcher 3 game, as Gesheft, a powerful silver sword. The blades are certainly very similar. Perhaps, then, the sword isn’t important at all. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time Geralt has held a sword in Witcher 3 expansion artwork – he did it for both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.
Side note: it must be more than coincidence that the number of swords on Geralt’s person in Witcher 3 expansion artwork has grown corresponding to the sequential number of the expansions themselves. In the first expansion’s artwork Hearts of Stone, for example, Geralt has one sword. It’s two for Blood and Wine and three for Songs of the Past. That’s a clever touch, assuming it’s intended.
Count the swords in each picture. They correspond to the sequential order of the game’s expansions. Coincidence? | Image credit: Plenty_Shift_551 / CD Projekt Red
Exactly how teasing CD Projekt Red is being here, then, it’s hard to tell without all of the details, and with Songs of the Past due next year, there’s a long marketing campaign still to come. The next beat of that, incidentally, will be late summer, so perhaps some questions will be answered then. We’re also expecting to see more of The Witcher 4 at Unreal Fest later in June.