Madoc

Common card · No. 255231

In Welsh folklore, Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd (also spelled Madog) was a Welsh prince who sailed to the Americas in 1170, 322 years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. According to the story, Madoc was a son of Owain Gwynedd who went to sea to flee internecine violence at home. The "Madoc story" evolved from a medieval tradition about a Welsh hero's sea voyage, of which only allusions survive. The story reached its greatest prominence during the Elizabethan era when English and Welsh writers wrote of the claim Madoc had gone to the Americas as an assertion of prior discovery, and hence legal possession, of North America by the Kingdom of England. The Madoc story remained popular in later centuries, and a later development said Madoc's voyagers had intermarried with local Native Americans, and that their Welsh-speaking descendants still live in the United States. These "Welsh Indians" were credited with the construction of landmarks in the Midwestern United States, and a number of...

Read on Wikipedia · Image BaeColwyn.com From the book "Prince Madog, Discoverer Of America. A Legendary Story: Illustrated By A. S. Boyd" By DANE, Joan, Public domain