5. Borrowing from multiple similar stories found across European traditions, the “Mouse Tower” story, whereupon a tyrannical lord is eaten alive by mice, is based on both Slavic and Germanic folklore
Appearing in The Witcher 3, Lord Vserad, caring not for his subjects, retreated into his tower with enough supplies to outlast a famine ravaging his lands. Disappearing soon after, a semi-true legend is propagated in the local region that a host of mice invaded his tower and proceeded to devour everything and everyone housed within. Influenced heavily by the story of Prince Popiel II, a 9th-century ruler of the West Slavic tribe of Gosplans and Polans, the last leader of the Popielid dynasty supposedly met his end in a similar manner. A cruel and corrupt ruler, caring only for feasting and fornicating, he ruthlessly murdered his twelve uncles and cast their bodies into a nearby lake.
Facing rebellion, Popiel and his wife took refuge in a tower near Lake Gopło. Having consumed the corpses from the lake, a horde of ravenous mice chewed through the walls and ate the couple alive. This legend itself mirrors a late-10th-century account concerning Hatto II, the Archbishop of Mainz. Exploiting his people and gathering a huge surplus of grain, Hatto attempted to sell it at a huge profit during a famine. However, his tower was besieged by an army of thousands of mice, who, eating through the doors, ate the cruel archbishop alive.