In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt and Ciri both encounter the Ladies of the Wood, who are more terrifyingly known as the Crones of Crookback Bog. These three sisters form a horrific visage, and legends say they are the daughters of the Lady of the Wood. While The Witcher's world is rife with sorcery and magic, these crones tend to draw from the stereotypical imagery of classical witches who feed on children to maintain their youth. The power they possess is immense, and few in the world actually understand its nature or its depths, but there are those in Velen who worship them as goddesses.
Named Brewess, Weavess and Whispess by the people who know of them, the three are inspired by numerous mythological and historical legends and stories, including the Baba Yaga, the Fates of Greek, Roman and Norse mythology and William Shakespeare's Weird Sisters. No one knows what their true names are, but the blessings they offer are as bountiful as their curses are bleak.
Weavess was the youngest of the three sisters. Whispess, the eldest of the sisters, earned her name after she was burned alive in her cave in Toussaint by a knight with a heart of black. After he killed her, the knight went mad and committed suicide, claiming he was haunted by an eerie voice whispering in his ear that only he could hear. Brewess, the middle sister, was named so on account of her affinity for brewing magical potions, mixtures and concoctions. She was also said to have created over a hundred recipes for human soup.
After reading the book in Geralt's inventory, "The Ladies of the Wood," the player travels to the swamps of Velen to search for further signs of Ciri. The story tells of three witches who grant wishes to those who bring children to their shrine, and while it doesn't exactly say what happens to these children, the implications are ominous. Traveling into the swamps, Geralt happens upon a shrine and then finds a group of children singing a strange song. When speaking to the children, the player discovers they live in a cottage with an old woman named Gran.
When Geralt approaches Gran, it quickly becomes clear she is somewhat vacant. She doesn't speak to him, only to the children, whom she encourages to come inside. The children keep referring to Johnny, though Gran says Johnny isn't real, but upon further investigation, Geralt discovers that Johnny is in fact real, though he's not a little boy but a godling who resembles a child that had lost his voice. After helping Johnny get his voice back, he talked Gran into helping Geralt commune with the Ladies of the Wood.
Eerily enough, most of the time, the Crones communicated through a strange, enchanted tapestry featuring three beautiful women who are obviously meant to be the sisters in all their glory. The tapestry was woven by Weavess, using the hair of the children who had been offered to them as tribute. Gran acted as their medium, relaying their words while in a trance-like state, and it was in this way Geralt first spoke with the Crones of Crookback Bog.
Through investigation and questing, Geralt eventually discovered that Gran was actually the Bloody Baron's missing wife, Anna. She bargained with the Crones to keep her from carrying the child she was pregnant with full-term. In exchange, she worked for the Crones, taking care of and fattening up the children so the Crones could eat them. While Ciri was with the Crones, they planned to eat her, too, as they realized she had Elder Blood in her veins and she would give them immense power. During their conversation, they decided not to eat her entirely, but before they could eat one of her limbs as they planned, Ciri managed to escape Crookback Bog.
There was a possibility that on her escape, Cirilla could kill the Crones, which ended the game entirely, forcing the player to return to an earlier save to avoid killing them at that time. She and Geralt encountered them again later in the bog, at Bald Mountain. They had taken on a youthful appearance, seducing the men. Geralt was refused entry to visit with the Crones because he was too old and ugly to appeal to them, but Ciri, in her youthful beauty, was admitted. Descending into the mountain, she met with the Crones and was forced to face and kill them. Weavess was not killed in the battle, and she stole Vesemir's medallion from Ciri before she escaped.
In the event that Ciri died in the endgame battle, Geralt had the option to hunt down Weavess at her hut in the bog and take his vengeance. There, he fought and killed her, taking back Vesemir's medallion but facing numerous monsters the Crone summoned before her death.
The Crones of Crookback Bog may not have been the main antagonist in Wild Hunt, but they were certainly a fearsome trio of darkness and woe that fed greedily upon the world around them in order to grow and maintain their terrifying powers.