Hemith was born somewhere in the north, probably during the Second Age of Middle Earth.  She is of the Sindar, the wood elves, who especially love the trees and all that lives in their shadow.  Hemith's love for the great forests of Middle Earth was stronger even than that of her kinfolk, and she eventually forsook her home and people to wander Greenwood the Great, which then spanned much of the north.  She journeyed from the Misty Mountains in the west to the eastern borders of the great forest, and from the region of Erebor in the north down into the lands that would later become Rohan in the south.  For centuries, Hemith patrolled these lands alone, seeking the company of neither elves, nor men, nor dwarves.  Her weapons and clothing she made from the bounty of the forest, and her food was mostly seeds and berries, with the occasional roast made from an injured animal that she dispatched, to put it out of its misery.

And so, in peace and solitude, Hemith lived and grew in age, wisdom, and stature, until the depredations of man and orc whittled her home down to a few small, isolated forests.  Finally, in despair over her inability to protect the trees she loved from the many who cut them down, Hemith turned her footsteps west, to venture to the other side of the Misty Mountains, and visit lands she had only ever heard of.