[2] Fremund was the son of a pagan king who reigned in England, named Offa, and his queen Botilda, his birth being foretold by a child, who died when three days old.
Offa resigns his kingdom to his son, who, after governing a year and a half, forsakes the throne to serve God in a desert place, accompanied by Burchard (who afterwards wrote his life) and another attendant.
He then embarks in a vessel, sailing from Caerleon-on-Usk, and is driven to a small island called Ylefage, sometimes identified with Lundy,[3] which is infested by demons.
[4] Offa sends twenty nobles to seek his son throughout England, and, finding him, they implore his aid, and he assents in consequence of a vision in which it is revealed that each of his companions shall appear a thousand to his enemies.
He attacks and defeats 40,000 of the enemy with the twenty who have come to seek him, in addition to his two companions; in a great battle at Radford Semele and, while he is prostrate in thanksgiving for the victory, Oswi, formerly one of Offa's commanders, but who had apostatized and joined the pagans, cuts off his head.
[9] The earliest known author to record the legend appears to be William of Ramsey, a compiler of lives of saints and others, and who seems to have been a monk of Croyland.
It occurs in the collection Sanctilogium Angliae Walliae Scotiae et Hiberniae compiled by John of Tynemouth in 1366 and summarised by Hardy above.