Najateïme

Najateïme is a semi-historical folk hero in Maveren sagas. She probably lived two or three hundred years ago—before the living memory of anyone in Malfa, though some older part-elves might have known her.

As a folk-story figure, Najateïme is now seen as an example of true Maverenness, for both good and bad—daring, capable, arrogant, reckless, and probably tragic in the end. Erling Sattr has always been fascinated with the stories of her; he likes to repeat a line attributed to her, that "the Maveren deserve many things in life, but we do not deserve long lives."

The stories

Stories about Najateïme are unusually vague. Her House is not mentioned in sagas, which tend to cover individual adventures rather than her life story. She was a main player in the Feywaters War; she seems to have been some kind of sorcerer, but she also features in stories of swordfighting, wearing traditional Maveren scale mail and riding a dangerous otherworldly steed. (The bond between Najateïme and her magical horse is a feature of some of the less reliable stories about her, the ones for kids.)
The stories go that Najateïme was one of the Maveren who successfully captured a fey stronghold at the very border of the Feywild, and held out against the ensuing countersiege until she was the only Maver left alive. Then she was taken prisoner, rather than being killed, as a gesture of respect by the Queen of the Green Court to a powerful enemy. Najateïme spent an unknown number of years imprisoned in a shapeshifting semi-magical prison that was partly in and partly outside the Feywild. Then she escaped. The most famous story, the truth of which is doubted by many, is that she escaped into the Feywild, and then fought her way back out to the mundane world.
There are no stories about Najateïme after that. For instance, oral histories of the wars against the Sea Kings don't mention her at all, which leads many people to believe that she was dead by then.

Najateïme's letter on the Feywild

Aside from the stories about Najateïme, there is a famous tract attributed to her called On the Wilds of Feydom, supposedly written as a letter from Najateïme to another member of her House. It details what Najateïme learned about the nature of the Feywild during the war and her imprisonment; this makes it, according to legend, the only authoritative source on the Feywild by a mundane observer.
A few copies of the letter were bound and circulated in Malfa, adding to Najateïme's mystique, but no one has seen a copy in years. Its existence is now a rumour in itself. In fact, not a few people suspect that a) Najateïme probably died either in the war or in prison, and b) On the Wilds of Feydom was probably a fake, given that mundane people who return from the Feywild famously can't remember anything about it. Nonetheless, a genuine copy of the tract would be worth good money in Malfa.