Maewine grew up the daughter of a respected hunter and forester in the lands near Dale to the east and north of Mirkwood.  Her older brother was the apple of his father's eye and it was his father's belief and wish that his son would one day perform great deeds in the cause of the Free Peoples.  The boy did indeed have all the makings of a fine hunter and Maewine loved her brother dearly.  As a girl she was content to help her mother in their cottage and she might have expected to one day marry one of the local lads, many of whom sought her company as she grew into a pretty and cheerful young woman.

One fateful day in the depths of a particularly cold winter news came of packs of wolves attacking sheep and ponies in the upland pastures and Maewine's father and brother set out to investigate.  They never returned.  Days later the remains of their bodies were discovered in the frozen snow and the tracks of Wargs and goblins were identified alongside those of the raiding wolf pack.  Maewine's mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and son and a year later she died.  The healer said that she could  provide physik for the fever which took her but could not mend her broken heart.

Maewine was changed.  She determined that she would honour the memory of her father by stepping into her brother's shoes and seeking to fight corruption and to defend the free peoples of the land.  A week after her mother died she took her brother's spare bow and quiver and her father's dagger and set out for Bree.