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Urien ap Cynfarch Oer () or Urien Rheged (, Old Welsh: Urbgen or Urbagen, ) was a powerful sixth-century Common Brittonic-speaking figure who was possibly the ruler of the territory or kingdom known as Rheged. He is one of the best-known and best documented of the Ancient Britons figures of the Old North., "Urien of Rheged" His kingdom was most likely centred around the Solway Firth. According to the section known as the "Northern History" of the Historia Brittonum (), Urien gained a decisive advantage in a conflict against the Anglo-Saxons in northern Britain while leading an alliance with three other kings: Rhydderch Hen, Gwallog ap Llênog, and Morcant Bulc. The alliance led by Urien penned the Anglo-Saxons in at Lindisfarne, though this siege came to an abrupt end when Urien was murdered on the orders of his erstwhile ally Morgan.
The most secure evidence for his existence comes the Historia Brittonum and eight Panegyric in Middle Welsh orthography dedicated to him surviving in a fourteenth-century manuscript. Despite their being found in later orthography, the poems may possibly reflect early material, even material contemporaneous to Urien. One of these poems is explicitly attributed to the famed bard Taliesin in the manuscript. The "Northern History" in the Historia Brittonum also roughly synchronises Taliesin's career to the reign of Ida of Bernicia (547 × 549). Some of the Beirdd y Tywysogion () also allude to this strong association between Taliesin and Urien. The panegyric attributed to Taliesin concerning Urien is particularly significant because if it truly originates in the sixth century it, together with the poetry attributed to Aneirin, would be the earliest vernacular post-Classical European literature.
Early material concerning Urien characterises him as a ferocious warrior and a major political figure of his time, conquering Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Britons of the 'Old North' alike. However, the poems attributed to Taliesin do not include much biographical information about the man. According to the interpretation of John Koch, Urien may also have been the leader of the force opposing the warriors commemorated in the similarly possibly sixth-century poem known as the Y Gododdin who were killed in the Battle of Catraeth. In addition to this material, Urien and his family feature heavily elsewhere in other medieval literature from Wales.
Outside of the Welsh context, he was later transformed in Arthurian legend into the figure of king Urien of Garlot or Gorre. His son, Owain, likewise lent his name to Ywain.
Another difficulty with outlining Urien's career is that the poetry to him contained in the fourteenth-century Book of Taliesin, possibly from his own time, does not contain much in the way of narrative or readily usable information about Urien and his deeds; instead, it ambiguously recalls events and extols Urien's virtues, leaving scholars to piece together any kind of reconstruction of events. Likewise, beyond a general dating of the late sixth century, Urien's date of death (which is not memorialised in surviving panegyric) is very difficult to establish because of the confused chronology of the Historia Brittonum. Since this text has such difficulties, modern scholarship suggests Urien's death could have happened as early as 572 AD to as late as after Augustine's mission to the Kingdom of Kent in 597. Setting problems of the interpretation of the material concerning Urien aside, it is clear that he was (or at least was taken to be in later times) a very important figure of the late sixth century, but because of these difficulties, it is best to judge each surviving source concerning him individually rather than smooth over problems or contradictions with each to create a cohesive narrative combining them all.
In this narrative, Urien took hostile action against Theodric, together with Rhydderch Hen, Gwallog ap Llênog, and Morgan, who are (excluding Rhydderch) all recorded as descendants of Coel in the genealogies contained in the same manuscript. The meaning of "with his sons" in the second line is also problematic, as it is uncertain whether this line refers to Urien's sons, or those of Hussa, though it is generally understood that those of Hussa are intended. Echoing Gildas, it is said that the conflict between the Britons and the Saxons went back and forth, but Urien and his allies eventually gained the upper hand and besieged Theodric on Lindisfarne (Old Welsh: Medcaut). Urien was killed at the instigation of Morgan, who, according to the author of the Historia Brittonum, was jealous of Urien's martial ability. As Morgan is supposed to have come from Bernicia, a nearby territory to Lindisfarne, it has been suggested that Morgan at that moment felt more as threatened by Urien's powerful presence near his home than by the weakened Theodric.
Hussa (not just Theodric) is directly described as Urien's foe in the first sentence, which leads to difficulties of interpretation. Kenneth Jackson suggested this meant either that Urien fought against Theodric and Hussa before the latter's reign or that the chronology here is wrong and that the narrative refers to the reigns of Ida's sons in general. Ian Lovecy understood the reference to Theodric as a long parenthesis indicating that formerly the struggle went both ways, but not in Urien's last campaign against Hussa. David Dumville understood the text to refer to the warfare of all four British kings against the five English kings previously named in the Historia Brittonum besides Hussa, that is, from the reigns of Adda to Hussa. The next king is Æthelfrith, who took the throne , and so Urien could even have died as late as this. However, the section of the Historia Brittonum preceding this narrative records the Christianisation of Kent (occurring in 596-7) as occurring in the reign of Frithuwald (reigned 579-85), implying Urien's campaigns could even have been after 597. This is one of many places in the Historia Brittonum with a confused chronology. For this reason, Patrick Sims-Williams cast doubt on the reliability of the chronology concerning Urien and his campaigns against the Anglo-Saxons, leaving the date of Urien's death an open question.
The other 'historic' poems are a poem to Cynan Garwyn, one to Owain ab Urien, and two to Gwallog ap Llênog. The dating of these poems is still hotly debated between those who see the poems as reflecting early material, and those who favour a later date. Only one poem of these twelve, 'Yspeil Taliessin', is explicitly attributed to Urien's court poet Taliesin in the manuscript, but since Taliesin was strongly associated with Urien in later medieval Welsh literature, and the bulk of the content of the manuscript is to do with Taliesin, the name of the book has stuck.
Seven of the "historical" poems to Urien (including 'Yspeil Taliessin') end with the same 'refrain', so it would appear that they were seen as works of Taliesin in the Middle Ages as well. Taliesin is mentioned in the Historia Brittonum, though his life is synchronised to the reign of Ida of Bernicia (547 x 559), slightly before Urien's reign. It is not likely that Taliesin would have been only active for twelve years, but this may be when he began to be famed for poetry, though this is another example of the difficult chronology throughout the text. Taliesin was very well known for his poetic skill in later medieval Wales, and all sorts of legends sprang up about him attributing to him magic powers, including many poems "in character" attributed to him, and these poems form the bulk of the manuscript. Taliesin's "transformation" from a poet to an omniscient wizard is paralleled by the development of the legend of Virgil in the Continent, who also was attributed magic powers in folklore and literature because of his poetic skill.
These poems are in sometimes obscure language and do not offer very much in the way of clear biographical information about Urien. Much of the place-name evidence of these poems is understood to refer to places in modern-day Cumbria, though Urien is also said to have led battle in the area of the River Ayr, in the Brittonic-speaking kingdom of Strathclyde, and perhaps against the Picts. He is also recorded as fighting against the English, much like he is said to have done in the Historia Brittonum. One poem mentions Urien and Owain as having fought a certain Fflamddwyn (meaning 'flame-bearing'), which has been traditionally identified as a kenning referring to one of Ida's sons, perhaps even Theodric. Owain ab Urien is praised for killing Fflanddwyn alongside a "broad host of English" in another poem, and the practice of giving Welsh nicknames to early Northern Anglo-Saxon kings is common in the Historia Brittonum.. For the identification of Fflamddwyn with a son of Ida, see p. lxi. One dadolwch, or reconciliation-poem, also survives, implying that Taliesin ran afoul of Urien at some point and was obliged to get back into his good graces.. The dadolwch was practiced by Welsh poets who offended their patrons well into the late Middle Ages, where one may find plenty of examples.
Despite the importance of the testimony of the Gododdin for the sixth century, its age and the date of its composition is still under debate, moreso than the Taliesin material, since it is found as a composite text in the thirteenth-century Book of Aneirin. The 'B'-text of the Gododdin, in older orthography than the 'A'-text, is copied from two particularly archaic sources, though it is difficult to date these exemplars any earlier than the tenth century with certainty. It is not impossible that the most archaic stratum of the B-text called B by John Koch could go back to the sixth century, together with other kernels of the Gododdin.
John Koch reconstructed 'Arwyre gwyr katraeth gan dyd' in what it should have looked like in sixth-century Common Brittonic and judged the poem to be authentic to this period based on his understanding that it contains fossilised forms of words which reflect the Brittonic language before it lost case endings in the mid-sixth century. He also referenced another poem, 'Moliant Cadwallon', probably a genuine seventh-century panegyric to Cadwallon ap Cadfan, which says "Fierce Gwallog caused the greatly renowned death toll at Catraeth". This Gwallog is presumably Gwallog ap Llênog, the ruler of Elmet who fought alongside Urien against the Anglo-Saxons in the narrative of the Historia Brittonum discussed above.
The 'descendants of Godebog' here could refer to Urien and Gwallog, as another epithet of Coel Hen, their shared ancestor, is Godebog, meaning 'protector'. Rachel Bromwich supported an emendation of this line, deleting the preposition a 'with'. This would make the line mean "not as undying men did the descendants of Godebog fight for the land" and suggests the descendants of Godebog were allies of the heroes of the Gododdin. However, John Koch rejected this emendation on the grounds that it would leave the line a syllable short of the ten syllable metre of in the stanza. Therefore, according to Koch, 'Arwyre gwyr katraeth gan dyd', the Gododdin, and 'Moliant Cadwallon' all refer to the same Battle of Catraeth, with Urien and Gwallog opposing a force made up of the Gododdin forces and a contingent from Strathclyde under Cynon ap Clydno.
The impetus for the battle in Koch's understanding of events is linked to the presence of one Madog Elfed among the commemorated heroes of the Gododdin. His epithet implies he was a royal of Elfed (like Urien Rheged), and so he may have been a claimant to rule the region supported by the Gododdin and in opposition to Gwallog and Urien. As the quickest route from Gododdin to Elfed would pass through Catraeth, the battle therefore was a result of the forces of Urien cutting off the Gododdin force at the important crossroads there. The presence of the Anglo-Saxons, Koch argues, can be understood as representing Urien's overlordship over the Anglo-Saxons of Deira, with the Bernicians having been allied with the Gododdin force. Since the Bernicians are conspicuously absent from the enemies of the Gododdin in the poem, and likewise are the Deirans from the poetry surrounding Urien and in the narrative in the Historia Brittonum, Koch argued that the element of racial warfare in the poem is secondary to the composition of the text, after the loss of Britain to the English was cemented in the Welsh mind.
Though one of Urien's allies in the narrative of the Historia Brittonum was Gwallog ap Llênog, he is recorded as having fought against Urien's son Elffin in another one of the poems in this cycle, "Dwy Blaid". Likewise, one Dunod fought with Owain, while Brân ab Ymellyrn and Morgan – the orderer of Urien's killing – fought the narrator., 'Dwy Blaid' The identification of the narrator of these poems has been the subject of some debate. Ifor Williams understood him to be Llywarch Hen, Urien's cousin and the subject of his own cycle of poems lamenting his old age. Jenny Rowland thought he must be some other figure, perhaps one of Urien's nephews by his sister Efrddyl, since their grief may be emphasised because of their conflicting ties of kindred, and that Llywarch was not in her eyes a heroic figure. In response to this, Patrick Sims-Williams put forth powerful arguments based on the text and its history to identify the narrator with Llywarch Hen after all. Chief among these are the fact that the narrator addresses Urien as keuynderw 'first cousin', and that the weight of evidence about Llywarch in the eyes of later medieval Welshmen suggests they viewed him as a great warrior, even if he suffered in old age.
The most impactful and moving poems from this cycle are given the titles 'Pen Urien' (Urien's Head) and 'Celain Urien' (Urien's corpse) by modern scholarship. They relate the immediate aftermath of Urien's killing, with the name of the assassin given in another poem as Llofan Llaw Ddifro. In 'Pen Urien' and 'Celain Urien', the narrator was forced to finish Urien off and strike off his head, with the implication that it was unsafe to carry Urien's entire body home for burial. The narrator laments his fortune that he must leave the body of his caring lord behind and curses his hand for carrying out this grim task.
In the mnemonic devices known as the Welsh Triads, intended for bard to recall traditional stories, Urien is mentioned repeatedly. These mostly agree with the testimony of the Historia Brittonum and the other early sources, though there are some references to the later traditions. Urien is one of the "Three Armoured Warriors", "Three battle-rulers", and "Three Holy Womb-burdens". The latter gives his mother as Nefyn ferch Brychan Brycheiniog, and his wife as Modron. Likewise, his killing at the hands of Llofan Llaw Ddifo is one of the "Three Unfortunate Slaughters". There are chronological impossibilities with associating his wife with a daughter of Brychan, and Modron is a purely legendary figure, whose first association with Urien is in this triad. Nevertheless, these show the enduring interest in Urien in the later Middle Ages, and the invention of tradition to satisfy continued regard for his life and deeds.
As well as Taliesin, Urien was supposed to have employed a poet named Tristfardd (literally 'sad poet'), as recorded in another triad, which calls Tristfardd one of the "Three Red-Speared Bards". Three englynion preserved in a very late manuscript record a story recounting how this Tristfardd secretly courted Urien's wife, and, not recognising the king, sent a disguised Urien to send a message to her. Urien slew Tristfardd for this offence at 'Rhyd Tristfardd', supposed to be in Radnorshire. This is a late tradition, and runs contrary to the association of Urien with Taliesin and the very strong association of Urien with the North, though it seems probable that this story was affixed to the name of Trisfardd even later than his appearance in the Triads.
Literature about Urien, whether reflecting early material or not, seems to have circulated in more channels than survive to the present. This can be evidenced by the twelfth-century poet Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr's attribution of the 'wrath of Urien' to his patron Owain Cyfeiliog, using the form Urfoën (Middle Welsh: Uruoen). This reflects an older form of the name (reconstructed as a Common Brittonic form *Urbogen) which retained the composition vowel. This vowel is reflected in a weakened form /ə/ in one rendition of Urien's name in the Historia Brittonum, Urbagen ()., †Praefatio† Kenneth Jackson dated the loss of this vowel to the sixth century in Welsh, and Ifor Williams went so far as to say the trisyllabic form must be reinserted in one of the Taliesin poems to rectify a defect in the metre in a line in one poem.; Assuming Cynddelw did not independently create this form so that he might fill the metre of this line in his own poem, this gives the tantalising suggestion that he was reading sources about Urien which do not survive to us, or that this name survived in a fossilised spoken form as a part of bardic lore.
Urien is usually said to be the father of Ywain (Owain) by Morgan, but many texts also give him a second son, Ywain the Bastard, fathered on his seneschal's wife. Welsh tradition further attributes to him a daughter named Morfudd by Modron.
According to Roger Sherman Loomis, the name and character of another Arthurian king, Nentres of Garlot (in Malory, the husband of Arthur's sister Elaine), could have been derived from that of Urien.: "A king whose name appears in the Vulgate Cycle frequently as Uentres or Nentres was derived from the name Urien, borne originally by a king of the Britons of Strathclyde in the seventh century. Besides the test of an established transmission that derivation can be supported by two other tests: a community of relationships between Urien and Uentres, and an explanation of the latter corrupt form. According to the Huth Merlin, Morgain is given in marriage to Urien of Garlot; according to the English Merlin, Morgan, a bastard daughter of Ygerne, is given to Neutre of Sorhaut. (...) Urien is king of Garlot in the Huth Merlin, and of Gorre in Malory, but Sorhaut is a city within his borders. So marked an equation of Urien and Uentres as husbands of Morgain and as lords of Garlot and Sorhaut should suggest a confusion between the names." Malory spells Urien's name as Urience of Gorre, which has led some later authors ( e.g. Alfred Tennyson) to identify him with Arthur's relentless rival King Rience., see note 36 on p. 306
In the Didot-Perceval manuscript of the Perceval en prose (c. 1200), Perceval fights Urbain, son of the Queen of the Black Thorn ( Reine de la Noire Espine) and defender of a ford and an invisible castle. Following Urbain's defeat, a flock of monstrous ravens attacks Perceval, who manages to wound one of them which immediately transforms into a beautiful young girl, soon carried off by the other birds to Avalon. Urbain explains that she is the sister of his fairy mistress and her attendants. According to Loomis, the story's Urbain corresponds to Urien, father of Owain (Yvain) and husband of Morgen (Morgan), the latter being the equivalent of the Welsh Modron and the Irish Morrígan ('Great Queen'). Modern scholarship in the field of Celtic studies strongly disapproves of this and other mythologising and equation of Welsh and Irish material haphazardly.
Poetry to Urien in the Book of Taliesin
Much like many cultures in north-western Europe during Late Antiquity, medieval Welsh culture valued praise-poetry, or poems praising the virtues of a leading political figure. Urien has the almost unique distinction of having a sizeable body of possibly contemporaneous poems dedicated to him in the Book of Taliesin (Peniarth MS 2), a Middle Welsh manuscript of the early fourteenth century. Twelve poems in this manuscript are taken to be "historical", that is, possibly reflecting genuine sixth-century material and devoid of supernatural or Gnomic poetry content. The eight poems in this manuscript which address Urien are:
The date of the panegyric to Urien
The poems attributed to Taliesin are of particular interest because they could represent the earliest vernacular literature in Europe in the Middle Ages, even as they survive in a late manuscript. John Koch has suggested that Urien's son Rhun ( ), who is credited as a source in the Historia Brittonum, may have also been involved with the recording and writing down of some of the poetry to his father. John Morris-Jones argued that all the poetry to Urien, Owain, and Gwallog were genuinely sixth-century in his criticism of J. G. Evans' edition of the Book of Taliesin in 1918, which was followed by Ifor Williams in his edition of the poems. This early date has been criticised by various scholars since Morris-Jones' time, with many suggesting they instead were created in the ninth century or later. Despite this, there has been no definitive linguistic argument that they are later than Urien's time, though this does not mean that they are definitely from the sixth-century, either.
Urien and the Battle of Catraeth
In addition to Taliesin, the sole other early Welsh poet to whom surviving poetry is attributed is Aneirin. Aneirin is credited as the author of the Gododdin, a collection of elegies surviving in a thirteenth-century manuscript for warriors who were slain in the Battle of Catraeth in the latter half of the sixth century AD. The warriors commemorated in the poem are uniformly Brittonic-speaking, and their enemies are described as eingyl (Angles), saesson (Saxons), and deor/dewr or deivyr (Deira).. pp. 50, 116, 198, 633, 717, 733, 741, 751, 1351 for the references to the words themselves For this reason, the poem is traditionally understood, both in the Middle Ages and in most modern scholarship, to have commemorated a battle between Brittonic-speaking warriors led by a king of the Gododdin and the Anglo-Saxons who had begun to settle the north-eastern coast of Britain. According to this interpretation of the text, the confrontation was on by the recent conquest by the Anglo-Saxons of the old Roman fort of Cataractonium (giving Catraeth in Welsh), which was situated on an important crossroads. However, John Koch's commentary on the Gododdin radically challenges this interpretation, and places Urien as the leader of the forces opposing the figures commemorated in the Gododdin at Catraeth in AD.
References to Catraeth outside the Gododdin
There are two references to Catraeth in the poetry concerning Urien attributed to Taliesin. The opening line of the second poem in Ifor Williams's edition is italic=unset, 'the men of Catraeth arise with the day'. In this poem, the 'men of Catraeth' are described as following Urien on his various campaigns, and the poem makes reference to a certain 'Battle of Gwen Ystrad'. The narrator in 'Yspeil Taliesin' also says gweleis i lyw katraeth tra maeu 'I saw the lord of Catraeth i.e. across the plains'.
John Koch's reconstruction of the Battle of Catraeth
Just as there are references to Catraeth outside of the Gododdin, so there appears to be a reference to Urien and Gwallog in it. One stanza begins:
Receptions of Koch's hypothesis
While Koch's textual reconstruction of the Gododdin in sixth-century Welsh was lauded as being accomplished and accurate, the date he proposed for the Gododdin, his historical background for the battle, and his account of the transmission of the text remain controversial, since Koch postulates an early written version of the Gododdin as having been created in Strathclyde in the seventh century. In particular, Graham R. Isaac strongly rejected Koch's date for 'Arwyre gwyr katraeth gan dyd', and dated this poem to between 1050 and 1150 based on the metrically important prosthetic vowel in the words ystrat and ystadyl in one line of the poem. Were this the case, Koch's understanding of the background, transmission, and historical importance of the Gododdin would be severely damaged, and while his is not the mainstream opinion on the text, debate on this matter still continues.
Later Welsh material
Saga poetry and Canu Urien
Because of his appearance in early poetry and central place in the narrative of the Historia Brittonum, Urien became a figure in the body of later Welsh literature concerning the "Old North", which functioned as the setting for much medieval Welsh literature. One such piece of literature concerning Urien, or more accurately Urien's sons, is fittingly called the "Urien Rheged" cycle (Welsh: Canu Urien) by modern scholars, as the poems are concerned with the events in Rheged after the killing of Urien. The poems survive mainly from two Middle Welsh manuscripts, the Black Book of Carmarthen (c. 1250) and the Red Book of Hergest (after 1382). Nevertheless, Canu Urien is generally understood to be a copy Old Welsh-period material, dated to around the same period of the Historia Brittonum. This material is called 'saga poetry' by comparison with Icelandic sagas, because like the Icelandic material, the Welsh poems are thought to have been taken from longer, partly prose (or oral) works, and because they both might reflect earlier history through a literary lens.
+ Canu Urien §§7–27, 'Pen Urien' and 'Celain Urien' (Red Book of Hergest) The slender white corpse is being buried today
under soil and stones.
Alas, my hand, for the killing of Owain's father.The slender white corpse is being buried today
in soil and an oak coffin.
Alas, my hand, for the killing of my cousin.The slender white corpse is being buried today –
under stones it has been left.
Alas, my hand, for the fate which was fated for me.The slender white corpse is being buried today
amidst soil and sods.
Alas, my hand, for the killing of the son of Cynfarch.The slender white corpse is being buried today
under earth and a standard.
Alas, my hand, for the killing of my lord.The slender white corpse is being buried today
under soil and sand.
Alas, my hand, for the fate which has befallen me.The slender white corpse is being buried today
under soil and nettles.
Alas, my hand, for the fate which has been brought about for me.The slender white corpse is being buried today
under soil and grey stones.
Alas, my hand – it caused my fate.I carry a head on my arm.
He made of the Bernicians
after battle a burden for biers.I carry a head from the side of a post,
the head of Urien, a warlike lord,
and though Judgment Day were to come I do not care.I carry a head in the grasp of my hand
of a generous lord - he used to lead a country.
The chief support of Britain has been carried off.I carry a head which cared for me.
I know it is not for my good.
Alas, my hand, it performed harshly.I carry a head from the side of the hill
and on his lips is a fine foam
of blood. Woe to Rheged because of this day.It has wrenched my arm, it has crushed my ribs,
it has broken my heart.
I carry a head which cared for me.
Urien in other medieval Welsh literature
Urien is mentioned in passing in the Llywarch Hen cycle, poems about the sufferings of his cousin Llywarch and written with the poet speaking from Llywarch's point of view. They are, like Canu Urien, certainly later than Llywarch and Urien's time. Urien is recorded as supplying Llywarch's last surviving son Gwên with a horn which Llywarch advises Gwên to blow if he needs aid while on guard at night.
The rebellion of Rhys FitzUryen ap Gruffudd
Like many other figures of the Early Middle Ages in Welsh tradition, Urien captured interest in Wales even a millennium after his death. In the sixteenth century, Rhys ap Gruffudd, a grandson of the Rhys ap Thomas who greatly aided Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field, was disinherited from his grandfather's estates by order of Henry VIII. The king instead gave these lands to his follower Walter Devereux. This greatly incensed Rhys, who then began a long feud with Devereux, which ultimately led to the execution of Rhys on charges of treason. Just like Henry Tudor, Rhys tried to weaponise political prophecy to gather support for his cause in Wales. He was accused of going by the name "FitzUryen", meaning 'son of Urien', and attempting to gain support from James V of Scotland to make himself an independent Prince of Wales. Rhys claimed to be a member of the house of Dinefwr, which originated with Rhodri Mawr's son Cadell. Rhodri's ancestry claims an origin from Llywarch Hen, which would make Rhys ap Gruffudd a distant relative of Urien. As Urien was remembered for his battles against the English, the authorities feared he would be able to capitalise on anti-English sentiment in Wales. Urien's son Owain was associated with ravens in later Welsh literature, and Rhys ap Gruffudd, together with his grandfather Rhys ap Thomas, bore three ravens on their coat of arms, which were called the "ravens of Urien" by contemporaneous poets such as Guto'r Glyn and Lewys Glyn Cothi., line 34
Arthurian legend
Geoffrey of Monmouth, drawing on Welsh sources and his own imagination, adapted Urien into Arthurian legend, and made him known across Europe with the explosive popularity of his Historia Regum Britanniae. In Geoffrey's telling, taken on by many following him, Urien is one of three brothers who ruled Scotland before the Saxon invasion – the others being King Lot of Lothian, and Augusel. After freeing Scotland, Arthur restored the throne of Alba to Augusel, and made Urien king of Mureif (perhaps Monreith, or Moray). Urien's son Eventus later succeeds Augusel as king of Alba.
Romances
In the 13th-century Arthurian chivalric romances, the location of his kingdom is transferred to either Garloth ( Garlot) or the and magical Kingdom of Gorre ( Gore). During the reign of Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father, Urien (or Uriens) marries a sister or half-sister of the young Arthur. She is either Morgan or one of the others, such as Hermesan in the Livre d'Artus and Blasine in Of Arthour and of Merlin. Urien, like the kings of several other lands, initially opposes Arthur's accession to the throne after Uther's death. He and the others rebel against the young monarch (with Urien even briefly kidnapping Arthur's wife Guinevere in the Livre d'Artus). Upon their defeat, he is among the rebel leaders who become Arthur's allies and vassals. His marriage to Morgan is not portrayed as a happy one, as in a popular version from the Post-Vulgate Cycle (later included in Thomas Malory's influential Le Morte d'Arthur) Morgan plots to use Excalibur to kill both Urien and Arthur and place herself and her lover Accolon on the throne. Morgan fails in both parts of that plan, foiled by their own son and by the Lady of the Lake, respectively.
Notes
Bibliography
Primary sources for the 'historic' Urien
(2026). 9780954318628, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge. ISBN 9780954318628
(2026). 9781783275137, Boydell Press. ISBN 9781783275137
(1969). 9780852240496, Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780852240496
(1980). 9780847662647, Phillimore. ISBN 9780847662647
(1990). 9780859912754, D. S. Brewer. ISBN 9780859912754
(2026). 9781907029134, Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. ISBN 9781907029134
(1968). 9780901282019, Institute for Advanced Studies. ISBN 9780901282019
(2026). 9780241381137, Penguin Classics. ISBN 9780241381137
Primary sources for the Urien legend
(1994). 9780708312148, University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708312148
(2026). 9781783161454, University of Wales Press. ISBN 9781783161454
(2026). 9780955718281, CMCS Publications. ISBN 9780955718281
(2026). 9780955718274, CMCS Publications. ISBN 9780955718274
(1995). 9780708312537, University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708312537
(1991). 9780708310861, University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708310861
Secondary historical scholarship
(2026). 9781851094400, ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851094400
Secondary literary scholarship
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