When Fflamddwyn demands hostages, Owain shouts defiance and inspires the men of Rheged to fight rather than give tribute to the English.
Over the centuries, the history of Owain known to storytellers faded sufficiently that he was incorporated into Welsh Arthurian legend and stories about him spread to continental Europe.
[1] The character is portrayed as an excellent knight in the later romances, the Lancelot-Grail cycle and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, under one spelling of his name or another.
He appears in most of the later accounts, his importance indicated by his close friendship with Gawain and the passage in the Mort Artu section of the Lancelot-Grail cycle where he is one of the last knights to die before Arthur.
Almost all versions of the Arthurian story have Owain as Urien's son and Arthur's nephew, and the later accounts assume his mother is Morgan le Fay, if not one of the King's other half-sisters.