*SPOILERS* Question about Ciri's age in The Tower Of The Swallow

[Domhnallaich]

*SPOILERS* Question about Ciri's age in The Tower Of The Swallow

When reading TotS, the section where Yennifer is on Skellige and is chatting to Crach...

Spoiler

He talks about Ciri spending time there as a child and, on how she beat his Son at a rock jumping game. He comments that she was 15 at the time this happened. This has gotten me a little confused because, I thought Ciri was younger than 15 when Cintra fell. Then, there is the time she spent on the run after Cintra, which was probably not very long. Then with Geralt at KM and then with Yennifer in Ellendar and beyond, which I think all in would have spanned 1 - 2 years.

We then have the events of Thanned Island which at the time of the book I think was 1, maybe 2 years ago. She also spent time with The Rats - I figured she was only about 15-16 when she was with them. All in all, I was thinking that something like 4 - 5 years had passed, since the fall of Cintra and the events of this book, which would have put her at close to 21 since, the time on Skellige preceded this.

Could anyone clarify please?

 

[Guest 3847602]

Could anyone clarify please?

Spoiler

IIRC, it was Hjalmar who was ~15, Ciri was less than 12. Probably a translation error.

 

[Rawls]

^This.

 

[Domhnallaich]

Thanks guys. Thought i'd post the passage for reference. it is on page 339 of the official English translation. I have included some other passages for reference to the story.

Spoiler

...Youngsters from Ard Skellig, he bagan, love playing on skates during the winter...

...Other boys compete at the so called Salmon Leap... Of course, he continued, whoever jumps the longest row of rocks wins the competition.... my son Hjalmar was the champion... the challenge was taken up by Ciri....

...Well finally Hjalmar informed me that they were betrothed. I almost had an attack of apoplexy. I'll teach you, you rascal, I'll give you a betrothal, but with a rawhide whip... And I was a bit anxious, for i'd seen that the Lion cub was reckless, for she was a dare-devil, not to say a little maniac.....

...How old were they then?
He was fifteen, she almost fifteen....

 

[Rawls]

The exact quote from the old unofficial fan translations was almost identical, but the last line read:

Spoiler

He was fifteen, she nearly twelve.

I've never checked out the original polish for myself, but my understanding has always been that she was twelve-ish, not fifteen. Good catch though, I didn't even notice the discrepancy when I read the official English translation last winter.

 

[PATROL]

In addition, twelve as her age is an author's mistake

Spoiler

she was 12 when she was in KM/on the road to Ellander

It's pretty bad when translator makes confusing thing even more confusing

 

[daneel53]

In polish, Sapkowski wrote "On piętnaście, ona niecałe dwanaście", whose translation is "He was fifteen, she was less than twelve". So the unofficial english translation is right, the official one's an error.

Apart from this, Sapkowski is not consistent with Ciri's age.

Spoiler

This winter in Skellige was the last before Cintra's fall that occured autumn 1263, so it was winter 1262, Ciri is supposed to be eleven. Ciri was found by Geralt one year after Cintra's massacre into Yurga's home, then she spend around one year and half into Kaer Morhen before going to Ellander in march or april 1266 with Geralt and Triss. During this journey toward Ellander, Ciri says that she "will soon be thirteen". But Ciri can't be near twelve in winter 1262 and only near thirteen more than three years later in march 1266 !

So finally the exact age of Ciri is unknown. All that we can say is that, depending the clues in the books that you take, she is born in 1251, 1252 or 1253. Tower of the swallow events take place in 1267.