Uther Pendragon
Categories: British traditional history | Arthurian legend | Fictional kings
Uther Pendragon (pen-dragon = "head of the dragons") is a legendary King of the Britons and father of King Arthur in Arthurian legend. In French he is called Uterpendragon or Utependragon, in Welsh Uthyr Pendragon, in Irish Iubhair, and in German Utepandragun (today, the English name is widely used in all these languages). The surname Pendragon is explained by a dragon-shaped comet which Uther sees and which inspires him to make two dragon standards.
Uther is first mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Geoffrey makes Uther the younger brother of Aurelius Ambrosius (the historical Ambrosius Aurelianus) and his successor to the throne of Loegria/Logres. Both are younger brothers of Constans, son of Constantine, whom Vortigern had made his puppet king before arranging for his death. The three were sons of King Constantine, a historical claimant to the Roman throne from 407–411.
According to Geoffrey, he fell in love with Igraine, the wife of his liegeman Duke Gorlois of Cornwall, and waged war on them to get to her. With the help of Merlin he disguised himself as Gorlois and slept with Igraine, begetting Arthur. The theme of illegitimate birth is repeated in Arthur's siring of Mordred in the later prose Arthurian romances. In later versions of the story, Merlin takes Arthur away to be raised by Sir Ector, ignorant of his parentage.
Welsh text mentions another son of Uther named Madoc, the father of Arthur's nephew Eliwlod.
Geoffrey also gives Uther a daughter Anna by Ygraine. Anna marries King Lot and becomes mother by him of Gawain and Mordred. This character becomes the Morgause of later legends, though Morgause is generally said to have been Igraine's child by Gorlois. Geoffrey was apparently confused by Anna, however, as he later states that Arthur's sister married Budic of Brittany and became the mother of Hoel (variously called Arthur's "cousin" and "nephew"). In Welsh genealogies an Anna does appear as mother of Hoel of Brittany, but in there this Anna is unconnected with Uther Pendragon. Yet Geoffrey very much insists on a line of British kings of Brittany which Uther sees in a vision of a comet that will descend from a daughter that will be born to him, the first of these Breton Kings being Hoel. It is possible that Anna appeared in whatever source Geoffrey was using as the mother of Hoel, not of Gawain, and that Geoffrey changed the story or confused his sources. Later retellers of Geoffrey's account are confused by these contradictions and usually try to resolve them by making Hoel's kinship to Arthur vague.
In the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, the Aurelius Ambrosius character is the one called Pendragon. Uther adds the name Pendragon to his own when his brother dies.
There is an alternate account of Uther Pendragon's background in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. A certain Mazadân went with a Fay named Terdelaschoye to the land of Feimurgân. (This looks like a garbling of Morgan le Fay, a person, and "Terre de la Joye", the "Land of Joy".) Mazadân becomes father of two sons, Lazaliez and Brickus. Brickus becomes father of Utepandragûn father of Arthur while the elder son Lazaliez becomes father of Gandin of Anjou father of Gahmuret father of Parzival/Percival. Uther Pendragon and Arthur appear here as the scions of the junior branch of an imagined 5th/6th century House of Anjou.
In the Prose Lancelot Uther Pendragon claims to have been born in Bourges. He takes an army overseas to Brittany to fight against King Claudas of Bourges, a mission Arthur would complete years later. The inspiration for this story may lie with the historical 5th century British ruler Riothamus, who went to Brittany to fight ravagers based in Bourges.
In Robert de Boron's Merlin, Uther Pendragon personally kills the Saxon Hengest (the name Hengest appearing as Angis or Augis) when Hengest sneaks into the British camp in an attempt to assassinate him. In this story Merlin creates the Round Table for Uther.
Sometimes Uther is said to have died at the hands of an assassin, and sometimes as the result of a wasting illness that worsens when he insists on rallying his troops in combat. Arthur succeeded his father with difficulty.
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