Alluding to the incessant warfare with which this chieftain, during his lifetime, had harassed his Saxon foes.
In the Myvyrian Archaiology (II. 80) we have the following Triad relating to him.
"Three Knights of battle were in the Coart of Arthur; Cadwr, the Earl of Cornwall; Lancelot da Lac;[1] and Owain the son of Urien Rheged. And this was their characteristic, that they would not retreat from battle, neither for Spear, nor for Arrow, nor for Sword, and Arthur never had shame in battle, the day he saw their faces there, and they were called the Knights of Battle."
Owain is also mentioned with Rhnn mab Maelgwn, and Rhufawn befr mab Deorath Wledig, as one of the Three blessed Kings; [2] and in the 52nd Triad, we are informed that his Mother^s name wair ModroQ, the daughter of Afallach, and that he was born a twin with his sister Merwydd, or Morvyth, to whom Cynon ap Clydno's attachment is well known.
His place of sepulture is thus mentioned in the Graves of the Warriors.
"The grave of Owain ap Urien is of quadrangular form,
Under the turf of Llan Morvael."
Frequent allusions are made to Owain by the Bards of the Middle Ages, especially by Lewis Glyn Cothi, who in an ode to Gruffudd ap Nicholas, a powerful chieftain of Carmarthenshire," and one of the descendants of Urien Bheged, has, among other things, the following passage:
"Gruffudd will give three ravens of one hue.
And a white lion to Owain, [his son]."—I. 133.
The Editor of the works of Glyn Cothi supposes that "this expression may allude to Griffith presenting his son with a shield, with his own arms emblazoned upon it, and the royal lion for a
- ↑ Lancelot da Lac is generally considered as an exception to the general rule, that all the heroes of the Arthurian Romances are of Welsh origin. But it has been suggested to me by a learned Antiquary, that this distinction does not realyj exist, the name of Lancelot being nothing more than a translation of Paladr-ddellt (splintered spear), which was the name of a knight of Arthur's Court, celebrated in the Triads.
- ↑ The arrangement of ancient pedigrees is at all times attended with difficulty, but vain indeed would be the attempt to reconcile the genealogies of Romance with those of history.
In Morte d' Arthur, Owain's Mother is Morgan le Fay, sister to King Arthur.
of the Cymreigyddion Society of Abergavenny, in the Autnmn of 1886. The effect it produced was quite electric.
