[11] The early material paints Urien as a ferocious warrior and a major political figure in his time, conquering Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Britons of the 'Old North' alike.

Outside of the historical Welsh context, he eventually was transformed in Arthurian legend into the figure of king Urien of Garlot or Gorre.

[15] As with almost all figures of the early Middle Ages in Britain, the greatest difficulty when attempting to reconstruct Urien's life and career is how to interpret and reconcile our varied, late, and sometimes obscure, corrupt, or confused sources.

[22] Likewise, beyond a general dating of the late sixth century, Urien's date of death (not memorialised in surviving poetry) is very difficult to establish due to the garbled and corrupt nature of the text which synchronises his death to what has been interpreted to refer to a time as early as 572 AD to as late as after Augustine's mission to the Kingdom of Kent after 597.

'[26] His earliest recorded ancestor, Coel Hen, functioned as an origin point for many of the northern Brythonic-speaking dynasties of the early Middle Ages in Britain.

[30] Nothing reliable is known of Urien's father Cynfarch, even if he ruled over Rheged, though this may perhaps be assumed given that later material refers to the 'Cynferchyn', those claiming (or attributed) descent from him.

In illo autem tempore aliquando hostes, nunc cives vincebantur, et ipse conclusit eos tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in insula Metcaud et, dum erat in expeditione, jugulatus est, Morcanto destinante pro invidia, quia in ipso prae omnibus regibus virtus maxima erat instauratione belli.

[39] 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).

[44] 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.

[59] 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 Brythonic-speaking kingdom of Strathclyde, and perhaps against the Picts.

[63] There is also one dadolwch, or reconciliation-poem, among these poems, implying that Taliesin ran afoul of Urien at some point and was obliged to get back into his good graces.

Ifor Williams understood him to be Llywarch Hen, Urien's cousin and the subject of his own cycle of poems lamenting his old age.

[72] 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 them 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 as he suffered in old age.

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.

[77] In the mnemonic devices known as the Welsh Triads, intended for poets to recall traditional stories, Urien is mentioned repeatedly.

[80] 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.

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).

Rhodri's ancestry claims an origin from Llywarch Hen, which would make Rhys ap Gruffydd a distant relative of Urien.

[91][92][93] 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.

After freeing Scotland, Arthur restored the throne of Alba to Augusel, and made Urien king of Mureif (perhaps Monreith, or Moray).

[98] 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.

[99] 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.

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.

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").

[101][102] Note, however, that modern scholarship in the field of Celtic Studies strongly disapproves of this and other mythologising and equation of Welsh and Irish material haphazardly.