He dedicated the city to the goddess Athena and in honour of her, lit undying fires, whose flames turned to balls of stone as they grew low, with new ones springing up in their stead: an embellishment of an account from the third-century writer Solinus of the use of local coal on the altars of her temple.

He found employment as a swineherd at Swainswick ("Swineswick"),[9] about two miles from the later site of Bath, and noticed that his pigs would go into an alder-moor in cold weather and return covered in black mud.

[11] It was assembled from parts of two statues (respectively depicting Edward III and Bladud himself) previously mounted on the city's north and south gates; its pitted appearance from weathering enhanced the association with disease.

[9] In the eighteenth century Bladud's legendary cure was celebrated by John Wood, the architect responsible for the fashionable development of Bath, who incorporated many references to the king in his buildings.

Through this practice, he is said to have constructed wings for himself and to have tried to fly to (or from) the temple of Apollo in Trinovantum (London) or Troja Nova (New Troy), but to have been killed when he hit a wall, or to have fallen and been dashed to pieces or to have broken his neck.

[12] Eighteenth century Bath architect John Wood wrote about Bladud, and put forth the fanciful suggestion that he should be identified with Abaris the Hyperborean, the healer known from Classical Greek sources.