When Sihtric broke his side of the agreement by renouncing the Christian religion and died soon thereafter, she returned south and founded a nunnery at Polesworth, not far from the Mercian royal seat at Tamworth, spending the rest of her life as a devout nun and virgin.
[2][3] The story appears to take its cue from an earlier source, the D-version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which confirms that on 30 January 926 King Æthelstan married his sister to Sihtric (d. 927) and attended the wedding feast at the Mercian royal centre of Tamworth.
Reporting on the same event in the early part of the 12th century, William of Malmesbury identified her as a daughter of Edward the Elder and Ecgwynn, and therefore a full-blooded sister to Æthelstan, but says that he was unable to discover her name in any of the sources available to him.
[4] A variant version of the Bury tradition, which locates her burial place at Tamworth rather than Polesworth, identifies this Edith as a daughter of Ælfflæd, Edward's second wife, and hence Æthelstan's half-sister.
[2] A slightly earlier if largely legendary source which potentially casts some light on traditions surrounding St Edith is Conchubran's Life of Saint Modwenna, a female hermit who supposedly lived near Burton-on-Trent.