[citation needed] Odile was the daughter of Etichon (also known as Athich, Adalrich or Aldaric), Duke of Alsace and founder of the Etichonid noble family.

Her father did not want her because she was a girl and handicapped, so her mother Bethswinda had her brought to Palma (perhaps present day Baume-les-Dames in Burgundy), where she was raised by peasants there.

Whilst there, the itinerant bishop Erhard of Regensburg was led, by an angel it was said, to Palma where he baptised her Odile (Sol Dei), whereupon she miraculously recovered her sight.

She fled across the Rhine to a cave or cavern in one of two places (depending on the source: the Musbach valley near Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, or Arlesheim near Basel, Switzerland.)

[4] By the 14th century, Odile's cult had grown so strong that her relics were split and removed to Corbie, Prague and Einsiedeln.

The strength of her cult is supposed to have been a result of her patronage of the blind and partially sighted, which was especially pertinent in a time before the invention of spectacles.

St. Odile was long considered the patron of Alsace and eye patients, at least since before the 16th century; however, this was made official in 1807 by pope Pius VII.

As the patroness of ocular afflictions and ear diseases, St. Odile is often depicted with a pair of eyes on a book - particularly fine examples of such images can be found from the 14th-16th centuries.

A Life of St. Odilia was written about the 10th century, mostly dedicated to the retelling of her legend, the antagonism of her father, and the death of her brother Hughes.

In the valley of the Musbach, a small river that runs near Freiburg im Breisgau, pilgrims have venerated St. Odile for centuries.