I was just looking for old Welsh names and the one that was previewed under the website name was "Gwyneira" which means "white snow". Given that changelings are supposed to have abnormally pale skin this would in fact be perfect (the association of the opposite, Snow White, with a "witch" is perfect as well, though unintentional on my part).
So... This is all very rough and not edited at all, but it gives an idea of what I was thinking for my character's background.
Many years ago a poorer nobleman in the court of Llewelyn was bewitched by one of the sidhe, a devious hag, and taken as a mortal lover. Through this union a child, a changeling, was conceived. As was the way of hags, the child was switched with that of a mortal woman, to be raised among the normal folk. But this changeling was not exchanged for just any common child: no, the mother of the child with which this changeling was exchanged was none other than the wife of the poor nobleman. What the hag did with the stolen child is not known. Devoured it perhaps? No one can be sure of the ways of the sidhe.
The changeling, in any case, was named Gwyneira by her parents. The lands in which her father held sway were very old, steeped in the ancient traditions of the Isles. But wracked by guilt at what he had done, Gwyneira's father abandoned the old gods and brought Christianity into his home in an attempt to ward away spirits of the sort that had wronged him. However, little did he know that his daughter was not the one his wife had given birth to. At least not for a long time.
Gwyneira did not have an easy childhood. There was always something eerie about her, and not just her mismatched eye colours. She did not get along well with other children her age, and had to learn to defend herself from regular attacks and ambushes by her peers. Luckily her father still had enough of the old ways in him that he did not think it improper to teach his daughter how to fight. In this day and age it might be unseemly for a woman to wield a sword, so he taught her as best he could to use a staff. It was something of a commoners' weapon, but it was one that could be carried by any travelling woman without raising too many eyebrows.
Unfortunately for Gwyneira, as she grew older and became a young woman her faerie heritage decided to assert itself in a more forward way. She began feeling a desire to leave home, a sort of "call" from the wilds, as all changelings did at her age. It was the beckoning of her true mother. But Gwyneira fought it as best she could.
It was at this time that her father realized the true gravity of the situation. He had always had suspicions about his daughter from when she was a girl, and he had secretly consulted with some knowledgeable, and discreet, monks and other wise folks about what might be afflicting her. They had joked that she was faerie-touched, not quite believing it themselves, but Gwyneira's father worried that that was the truth of it. And now he had his answer. The horror of the truth at first threatened to overwhelm him, that he had lost his and his wife's daughter to the sidhe, but he knew that Gwyneira was still his own. And so he protected her as best he could from the more zealous of his fellow Christians who worked to banish the old ways by any means necessary.
For her part, Gwyneira had thought her origin a secret she had to keep from her parents. She had heard the tales of changelings when she was a child, never quite thinking she could be one herself. And she feared being cast out of her home. Still, though she fought the hypnotic call, her heritage surfaced in other ways. She discreetly sought tutelage from a pagan wizard in the ways of magic, for which she found she had a talent. She disguised her book of spells as a copy of the Bible, and practiced every day.
The mother that raised Gwyneira had not neglected her during all of this, though she had never quite felt right about her daughter. From an old family like that of her husband, she saw that her daughter was taught some practical skills in the tending and cultivating of herbs used in salves, poultices and the like. These skills would prove useful later, serving as a cover and means of supporting herself years later was Gwyneira did take to the road.
Some years later Gwyneira's father took ill, and though he survived he became such that he had to save his strength for fighting and defending his lands, and could no longer fulfill his duties to the court. So he made the rather unusual decision to send his daughter, Gwyneira, to act in his stead. She caused quite the stir, and many were the whispers of her unnaturalness. But her father had been a respected friend of the king for many years, and his reputation afforded her a degree of protection. The king or one of his advisors must have seen something in her that they could use as well, for Gwyneira had maintained her position despite the machinations of the court. On the surface she had made every attempt to appear as an ordinary woman, but underneath there is something else as well: a faerie creature bound up in magic.
