Also known as the Wild Woman of Withypool, Skade was born a griffin named Skraed. Living as an unpartnered griffin in the city of Withypool, she chose a Northerner slave boy named Llewelyn as her human partner, creating a massive scandal in the process.
Following Llewelyn's murder, Skraed became savage and rampaged through Withypool in pursuit of his killers, and in the process killed over a dozen people. Finally captured, she was sentenced by her own father, Archenan, the dominant griffin of Withypool. Seeing that she had declared herself an enemy to all humans, Archenan used his own unique magical gift to transform her into a human woman before banishing her - condemned to live out the rest of her life as the very thing she despised.
Saddled with human emotions she could not understand, the despairing griffin renamed herself Skade and wandered away into the wilderness alone - but though she believed her life was over, it was in fact only beginning...
Despite her human body Skade is still a griffin at heart - ferocious and unemotional, and unconcerned by other people's opinions. Like all griffins she takes what she wants, and if she considers someone a worthy potential "mate", she won't take no for an answer. Her true nature can be seen in ways other than her personality - she has small claws in place of fingernails, her hair is silvery grey, and she still has the fierce amber eyes she was hatched with.
Trivia
-At least one critic compared Skade's story to The Last Unicorn, but in fact I hadn't seen or heard of that movie at the time I first wrote about her. In fact she was actually inspired by Dragonheart 2 - an extremely cheesy fantasy movie with one genuinely cool and surprising plot twist
-When Skade first becomes attracted to a certain someone, she mistakes her feelings for the normal urges which come to griffins at mating time, hence her subsequent behaviour