In one of the catalogues issued by W M Voynich, there is listed this marvellous title:
Sir Thomas Herbert of Tintern: Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique. Describing especially the two famous Empires, the Persian, and great Mogull: weaved with the History of these later Times. As also, many rich and spatious Kingdomes in the Orientall India, and other parts of Asia; Together with the adjacent Iles. Severally relating the Religion, Language, Qualities, Customes, Habit, Descent, Fashions, and other Observations touching them. With a revivall of the first Discoverer of America. Revised and Enlarged by the Author (London: Jacob Blome and Richard Bishop, 1638).The last phrase, about the ‘revivall of the first Discoverer of America’ refers to Madoc ap Owen Gwyneth, a12th century Welsh prince said to have voyaged far away to avoid family feuds and power struggles. He sailed across the Atlantic and found land. Herbert refers to an ‘Old Copie’ that he used as a source for the Madoc passage in his history, and, if that existed, it is now a lost MS. He has the voyager departing from Abergele in North Wales, but other sources say Rhos-on-Sea.
Geofffrey Ashe in his Land to the West (1962), about the Irish saint Brendan the Voyager and similar legends, gives short shrift to the Madoc myth, seeing it as a Tudor political invention to justify priority in New World colonisation. The Tudors emphasised their Welsh origins, and wanted to establish a claim to American colonies, against those of France and Spain. Similarly, the Tudor courtier and magician John Dee suggested King Arthur had reached America, extrapolating from Geoffrey of Monmouth's tales of his conquest of Ireland: equally a political fiction (thanks to G J Cooling for this reference).
However, there are signs that this invented history was sourced in part from a genuine earlier tradition of a voyaging Madoc, not necessarily linked to Gwynedd, long pre-dating the Tudor fabrication, and similar in nature to the Arthur romances. Like the latter, this must have derived ultimately from Welsh court or folk tales. Nothing of this survives except the merest hints.
In Gwyn A. Williams’ thorough study Madoc, The Making of a Myth (1979), he argues, based on the fragmentary evidence, that there was a now lost medieval ‘Madoc romance’. The 15th century poet Maredudd ap Rhys, for example, proclaimed ‘A Madoc am I to my age’, because of his love of the sea, which clearly implies a Madoc tradition known to his audience. In a 13th century Flemish version of the popular medieval tale Reynard the Fox, the author, Willem, states that he also wrote one on Madoc (he is sometimes known academically as ‘Willem, the Maker of Madoc’).
Another Flemish author, Jacob van Maerlant, in his own ‘rhymebook’ of c. 1270 explains that he is now writing true history, not romances such as ‘Madoc’s dream’ or the exploits of Reynard or Arthur. He had earlier written on Merlin, and on the Grail. This important reference tells us both that Madoc romances existed and that they were seen as similar to Arthurian ones. The allusion to ‘Madoc’s dream’ may link it to Welsh dream tales such as ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy’ in The Mabinogion.
A supposed fragment of the Willem ‘Madoc’ was discovered in Poitiers in the 17th century. This has Madoc questing for The Fountain of Youth and discovering a magical island, Ely, and beyond that an isle full of sunlight devoted to love and music. Ely, says Williams, was Lundy, known to the Welsh as the setting for the Fountain and as Ynys Wair. Perhaps, we might speculate, the sunlit isle beyond, if it is not entirely imaginary, was based on one of the Isles of Scilly, such as Tresco, still often seem as a rare and precious place because of its beautiful gardens. Williams links this part of the tale to the Welsh tradition of the Gwerddonau Llion, the fairy meadows in the sea which are sometimes glimpsed. One of the Welsh Triads refers to ‘The voyage of Gavran and his companions in search of the Gwerdonnau Llion (Green Islands of the Ocean); and their disappearance from the island of Britain’.
When we unhitch the earlier Madoc from the fabricated Gwynedd history, he may have his origins anywhere in magical Wales or indeed in what the Welsh called ‘the Old North’, in Cumbria. Southey, in his poem on Madoc, has him visiting Aberffraw, Mathrafal and Dinefewr, the three royal courts of Wales, respectively of Gwynedd in the North, Powys in the centre and Deheubarth in the west.
There are few clues as to where his myths may have begun. One is the seafaring to isles of wonder, which implies the West, so a West-facing coastline such as that of the Welsh kingdom of Dyfed (Pembrokeshire) looks likely. This is also Mabinogion country around the Prescelli hills, Narberth and Newport. The other is that, like the Arthurian romances, the myths found their way to Continental minstrels, which implies a Norman link, suggestive either of the courts of the Welsh Marcher lordships or again of Pembrokeshire. Quite why it should be two Flemish authors who evoked him is not clear, but that may be an accident of historical survival. A Flemish/Pembrokeshire link would be useful evidence: G J Cooling tells me that in 1100 Henry I is credited with settling Flemish refugees in Pembrokeshire, so there may be the link.
We can probably infer that it was always a magical ship that voyaged, as in that wonderful and enigmatic ancient poem ‘The Spoils of Annwn’ , not a literal one. The land that the original Madoc sought, and perhaps discovered, was probably no earthly terrain, but one of the fabled mid-Atlantic lands, such as The Fortunate Isles or Hy Brasil, or even perhaps Avalon. In any case, we can certainly regret the loss of the Madoc romance, and of Madoc's dream.
(Mark Valentine)
