WERMUND  , an ancestor of the Mercian royal

family, a son of Wihtlaeg and father of Offa . He appears to have reigned in Angel, and his story is preserved by certain Danish historians, especially Saxo Grammaticus . According to these traditions, 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 . Frowinus's death was avenged by his two sons, Keto and Wigo, but their conduct in fighting together against a single man was thought to form a national disgrace, which was only obliterated by the subsequent single combat of Offa . It has been suggested that Athislus, though called king of the Swedes by Saxo, was really identical with the Eadgils, lord of the Myrgingas, mentioned in Widsith . As Eadgils was a contemporary of Ermanaric (Eormenric), who died about 370, his date would agree with the indication given by the genealogies which place Wermund nine generations above Penda . Frowinus and Wigo are doubtless to be identified with the Freawine and Wig who figure among the ancestors of the kings of Wessex . For the story of the aggression against Wermund in his later years, told by the Danish historians and also by the Vitae duorum Offarum, see OFFA; also Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, edited by A . Holder, pp . 105 if . (Strassburg, 1886) ; Vitae duorum Offarum (in Wats's edition of Matthew Paris, London, 1640) . See also H .

M .

Chadwick, Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907) .