Grave Hag

Grave hags are necrophages that look like deformed old women. They live in cemeteries and on old battlefields, where they feed on corpses and slurp the rotten marrow out of bones with long, prehensile tongues. When the local dead run out, they start hunting the living, and they bury their victims so the bodies can rot until they’re ready to eat.

In a fight a grave hag is quick and nimble. Her long tongue is her nastiest weapon: she lashes out with it at range, and it carries poison. She can also blind her opponent. The good news is that a well-timed counterattack can cut the tongue off, which ends the poison threat for the rest of the fight.

The best-known grave hag in The Witcher 3 is Mourntart, the target of Contract: The Merry Widow in Lindenvale, which rewards a grave hag trophy and mutagen. You can also run into grave hags around Downwarren, and one guards a lever door in the tunnels during The Great Escape. In Return to Crookback Bog, depending on your earlier choices, the Baron’s wife Anna has been turned into a grave hag.

Combat strategy

Grave hags are fast and like to fight at close range, so stay mobile and don’t let her chain strikes on you. The key moment is the tongue attack: when she lashes out with it, counterattack, and you’ll cut the tongue off. After that she can’t poison you anymore and the fight gets much easier. Necrophage oil adds damage, and Yrden slows her down so you can line up your hits. If she blinds you, back off and wait for your vision to clear instead of swinging at nothing, then go back in once you can see her tongue attack coming.