Thar Shaddin

There isn't much as far as deep woods are concerned around Shim aside from the stretch along the east side of the Ofriyu Mar river. You can see them on the bottom left of the map of Shim and the top right of the map of Marn. As you can see from the scale of the maps, those woods aren't very far from either place. Nobody lives inside them either, except for weirdos and animals. Everything else for miles around is tumbleweed country.

Those woods stretch north to mountains and south to the sea. He could have lived somewhere along there, though it would be a rarity. Anyone living like that would have to get very used to 'weird' things happening.

Ghosts. Elves. Vagabonds. Things flying overhead. Psychotic boars (oh wait, you got that one) uhh. Passing wizards. Faeries. Faeries. Ghosts. More forest faeries. River spirits. Orks. Goblins.

Actually, he probably would have seen Coinneach! He's the river spirit. But unless Mirko saw Coin kill someone, it probably wouldn't impact his history much. Just thought I would point it out (^_^)