Wermund

Wermund, Vermund[1] or Garmund is an ancestor of the Mercian royal family, a son of Wihtlaeg and father of Offa.

According to the Gesta Danorum, his reign was long and happy, though its prosperity was eventually marred by the raids of a warlike king named Athislus, who slew Frowinus, the governor of Schleswig, in battle.

As Eadgils was a contemporary of Ermanaric, who died about 376, his date would agree with the indication given by the genealogies which place Wermund nine generations before Penda of Mercia.

[2] He is mentioned in lines 1958-1963 of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf as Garmund the father of Offa of Angel and grandfather of Eomer.

Name spellings are derived from Oliver Elton's 1905 translation, The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, via Wikisource.

Wermund runs to embrace his victorious son Offa. Illustration by the Danish Lorenz Frølich in a 19th-century book.