Songs like Star of the County Down often refer to beautiful maidens. I find myself imagining a youthful 20-something, but what age were these songs really written about?
The Proto Germanic root word, ”magadinom”, meant young womanhood or a sexually inexperienced female. It's a female variant of the PIE base, ”maghu”, which means a youngster of either sex or an unmarried person.
So the word "maiden" could be appropriately applied to any post pubescent virgin girl.