Uther pendragon biography examples
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Uther Pendragon
Father of King Arthur in Arthurian legend
"Uther" redirects here. For other uses, see Uther (disambiguation).
Fictional character
Uther Pendragon (Brittonic) (;[1]Welsh: Uthyr Pen Ddraig, Uthyr Pendragon, Uthr Bendragon), also known as King Uther, was a legendary King of the Britons and father of King Arthur.[2]: 253
A few minor references to Uther appear in Old Welshpoems, but his biography was first written down in the 12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), and Geoffrey's account of the character was used in most later versions. He is a fairly ambiguous individual throughout the literature, but is described as a strong king and a defender of his people.
According to Arthurian legend, Merlin magically disguises Uther to look like his enemy Gorlois, enabling Uther to rape Gorlois' wife Lady Igraine. Thus Arthur, "the once and future king", is an
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Uther Pendragon is a major figure in the Arthurian legends. Although he mostly belongs to the era before Arthur’s generation, he is fundamental to the story of Arthur.
In this article, you will learn:
- Who Uther Pendragon was
- What his relation to Arthur was
- What he did
- Whether he may have been a real person
Be sure to check out our Arthurian Hub, as well as our list of Arthurian Characters for more articles like this.
Who Was Uther Pendragon?
Uther Pendragon was the father of King Arthur. As such, he is vitally important to the legends of Arthur. Without him, there would be no Arthur at all!
He ruled as king prior to Arthur’s reign. According to the legender, he was a powerful war leader who fought successfully against the Saxons, although not with the same level of success as Arthur.
He was the successor of a king named Ambrosius, allegedly his brother.
When he was a child, Uther was taken away to Brittany in France to protect him from evil King Vortigern. When he be
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Uther is possibly not an historical character, even though he does appear—briefly—in a few Welsh texts. These texts, though mostly recounting old tales, were first written down much later. The story of him being magically disguised by Merlin so that he could get into Tintagel to rape Igraine doesn’t appear until Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th Century. (I stand by what I wrote in an earlier post. No one asked Igraine whether she wanted to participate, which makes it rape. It will not be in my version. Also, having recently written a couple of novels loosely inspired by the Hercules legend, I can’t help but notice that this story exactly mirrors the story of Hercules’s birth, which only makes it more suspect in my opinion.)
But Uther will play a very minor part as Igraine’s (consensual, though adulterous) lover in my version.
Now, what’s interesting to me about Uther is his family connections. According to tradition, he may descend from a very historical character known to histo