Another version of the legend related that she halted on the journey at 'Stow' and sheltered under a miraculously growing ash tree which came from her staff planted in the ground.
Particularly in her work on saints' lives, Blanton has demonstrated that the lives of female saints such as Æthelthryth and their later cults offer powerful insights into the devotional lives of men and women in the Middle Ages.
After his victory, Æthelwald married Æthelthryth at Catterick on 1 November 762.
Eventually, in about 672, Æthelthryth persuaded Ecgfrith to allow her to become a nun, and “she entered the monastery of the Abbess Æbbe, who was aunt to King Ecgfrith, at the place called the city of Coludi (Coldingham, Berwickshire), having received the veil of the religious habit from the hands of the aforesaid Bishop Wilfrid”.
Æthelthryth founded Ely monastery after the death of her husband Tondberht, who is described in Bede's Ecclesiastical History as a "prince of the South Gyrwas".