Mousesack

"Do you really wish to know?" — Spoilers from the books and/or adaptations to follow!

Template:Character infoboxTemplate:BigQuoteMousesack (Polish: Myszowór) is a skilled and intelligent druid, and also a good friend and advisor to King Bran of Skellige, as well as of Queen Calanthe of Cintra. He has a thickset and robust appearance and wears a bushy beard.

Mousesack appears in the following short stories: "A Question of Price", "The Sword of Destiny", "Something More" and "Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna" (non-canon).

In the Bogusław Polch comics series

Mousesack was the son of Manissa, a witch in the service of Fregenal, who was killed in self-defence by Korin (the future father of Geralt). Mousesack's father left Manissa when he was a small child. Not knowing that the warrior killed his mother, the young Mousesack befriended Korin and the druid Visenna, who took him to the druid circle of Mayena ("Droga bez powrotu").

Even though, due to the plots of mages and the king, the Mayena Circle was destroyed, Mousesack and two older druids were invited by the king to a witcher tournament which was to take place on a special arena. When the tournament turned into a massacre of witchers of the Wolf School, Mousesack helped Geralt, his childhood friend, escape ("Zdrada").

Mousesack was opposed to the arguments of Eltibald and Stregobor during a council of wizards in which he took part, when they argued to consider the children born in the year of the Black Sun monsters ("Mniejsze zło").

Even though Mousesack appears in three out of six graphic novels by Maciej Parowski and Bogusław Polch, none of them was actually based on a short story in which he appeared (two of them were based on other short stories, while one was a story original to the comic). In his graphic novel appearances, he is younger than in the short stories he features in, and does not yet have his beard. No ties with Skellige are also mentioned, although it is possible that he moved to Skellige after the destruction of the Mayena Circle.

The Hexer

In the series, Mousesack appears in the episodes "Calanthe" and "Rozdroże", played by actor Aleksander Bednarz.

Episodes

06: Calanthe
08: Rozdroże

The Witcher

Mousesack does not make an appearance, but he is mentioned by the Hierophant in the Druids' grove in Chapter III. The Hierophant tells Geralt that he knows the witcher via one of his poker partners, their "mutual friend, Mousesack".

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

File:Tw3 Myszowór.png

Hierophant of the Skellige Circle

In the English version of The Witcher 3, Mousesack is known as Ermion. Geralt meets him at Ard Skellig, where he is a hierophant of the local circle of druids. It turns out that he does not want to let Yennefer go to the destroyed part of the forest, which she wants to explore. He eventually allows it only after consent from Crach an Craite, even though he is strongly upset by the sorceress because she, with the help of Geralt, stole the Mask of Ouroboros from his laboratory. His anger reached its zenith when Yen used mask. This rendered the mask useless and also created a huge storm. He calmed down a little, though, when he learned that it was necessary to find Ciri, but he was still very angry.

Geralt can play Gwent with him and win the unique "Leshen" gwent card, and at a later stage of the game Ermion can be recruited to help with the defence of Kaer Morhen. Witcher can also talk to him about Third Northern War, Radovid V, Emhyr and other political things.

Journal entry

Most druids on Skellige differ from the deeply rooted Continental stereotype of a graybearded old man in white robes bowing before sacred oaks, taming wyverns and pestering local lords with petitions to add yet another species to the list of protected beasts. Ermion, Geralt's old acquaintance, was no exception in this regard.

This stiff-bearded, spindly man was the leader of the Druids' Circle in Skellige. He was also Jarl Crach an Craite's advisor on matters of magic and they mystical, as well as on any and all issues requiring more refinement than a will-timed uppercut or a hard-swung axe.

Ermion was knows to be obstinate and to have a tendency, quite rare in Skellige, to consider all possible consequences of a particular course of action before it was undertaken. All this meant conversing with him demanded a considerable amount of time and patience.

Given all this, one can hardly be surprised that Yennefer and Geralt's "rash" and "highly irresponsible" actions regarding the magic anomaly – stealing a priceless artifact from a private chamber being first among them – put Ermion quite out of sorts.

However, despite his difficult character and his somewhat testy relationship with Geralt, Ermion agreed at once to travel to Kaer Morhen and help defend Ciri from the Wild Hunt's forces.

When persuasion and reason failed, Ermion would, as a last resort, turn to violence - and then he became a foe to be reckoned with.

Madman Lugos found this out personally when, in a fit of rage, he attacked Ermion and Geralt. As they had in the past, witcher and druid stood side by side and fought a common enemy.