The story of Rhita is told also by Malory, who calls that giant Ryons and Ryence; and there the incident seems to end with Ryons being led to Arthur's court by knights who had overcome him. Ryons' challenge, as given by Malory [162], runs thus:--
'This meane whyle came a messager from kynge Ryons of Northwalys. And kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And this was his message gretynge wel kynge Arthur in this manere wyse sayenge . that kynge Ryons had discomfyte and ouercome xj kynges . and eueryche of hem did hym homage . and that was this . they gaf hym their berdys clene flayne of . as moche as ther was . wherfor the messager came for kyng Arthurs berd. For kyng Ryons had purfyled a mantel with kynges berdes . and there lacked one place of the mantel . wherfor he sente for his berd or els he wold entre in to his landes . and brenne and slee . & neuer leue tyl he haue the hede and the berd.'
Rhita is not said, it is true, to have been a Gwydel, 'Goidel'; but he is represented ruling over Ireland, and his name, which is not Welsh, recalls at first sight those of such men as Boya the Pict or Scot figuring in the life of St. David, and such as Llia Gvitel, 'Llia the Goidel,' mentioned in the Stanzas of the Graves in the Black Book of Carmarthen as buried in the seclusion of Ardudwy [163]. Malory's Ryons is derived from the French Romances, where, as for example in the Merlin, according to the Huth MS., it occurs as Rion-s in the nominative, and Rion in régime. The latter, owing to the old French habit of eliding d or th, derives regularly enough from such a form as the accusative Rithon-em [164], which is the one occurring in Geoffrey's text; and we should probably be right in concluding therefrom that the correct old Welsh form of the name was Rithon. But the Goidelic form was at the same time probably Ritta, with a genitive Rittann, for an earlier Ritton. Lastly, that the local legend should perpetuate the Goidelic Ritta slightly modified, has its parallel in the case of Trwyd and Trwyth, and of Echel and Egel or Ecel, pp. 541-2 and 536-7.