The traditional account of Alena's life, dating to the twelfth century,[5] states that she was born in Dilbeek, just outside Brussels, Belgium, to noble pagan parents Levold and Hildegaart.

Alena's parents were shocked, but the miracles, and the witness given by her determined faith, led them to examine Christianity, and they themselves were converted.

Her shrine became incorporated into the parish church of Forest as a chapel which held her cenotaph and relics.

[5] By around 1600, her jawbone and upper arm were preserved in the parish church, each in its own jewel-studded reliquary dating from the 15th century.

The rest of the bones, with the exception of the collarbones, were preserved in the abbey church in a Baroque reliquary (1644) commissioned by Françoise de Bette, abbess 1637–1666.

[8] Recent analysis shows that the remains kept in Forest are unlikely in fact to be Alena's relics: carbon-14 dates are 9th-10th century and the size and shape of the bones strongly suggest a male rather than female body (conclusive DNA testing was not possible).