Lay-Sister Alfrida is a young woman possessed of a great curiosity about the world beyond the walls of St Frida's Abbey in the wilds of the Cornumbrian/Albion border and has far too much knowledge without much experience to back it up.

She wishes to see the world before making her mind up about giving up on it entirely and taking final vows as a sister of the abbey. To that end, she has the blessings of Abbess Tesni to go forth and a letter of introduction to explain her task of collating and cataloging the great libraries of the Church of the Isle of Albion for an index of use to St Frida's own library.

Alfrida's teacher in illumination and bookbinding, Sister Gwillian has also approved of this task, but as Librarian of St Frida's it could be said fairly that it was no great task to persuade her.

As the scholarly Alfrida collects languages unknown to her with delight, and will happily chat with anyone about them, be they noble or beggar, a chance to learn more in the wider world was eagerly accepted. She is also a passably good healer, gentle in manner with the sick and injured.

In appearance she is a slim but surprisingly tall woman, chestnut of eye, pale of skin with long often untidy locks of oddly coloured hair, seemingly a brown so dark as to seem black in candlelight, but deep auburn red in sunlight.

Her expression is most often stern, a defense against a world she has not yet got to grips with, but she is given to smiling at the slightest of jokes or the antics of her pet ferret, Rufina.