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 nearly a century after Columbus' voyage, and more than four centuries after Madoc's presumed disappearance. It obtained its great currency chiefly through fraud and misrepresentation. It was supported by what can only be characterised as impudent and manifest falsehoods; for the narratives of those who came upon Welsh-speaking Indians are, from internal evidence, nothing else.

How then did the story originate? There are traces of Madoc traditions—though not such tradition s we find in Powel—in Meredydd. Coupling these with the statement that Madoc went across the broad sea, or "Morwerydd," it becomes highly probable that Madoc's voyage was only to Ireland. In early Welsh, "Morwerydd" regularly means the Irish Sea, and not the Atlantic. In the Brut y Tywysogion, we are told that Owain Gwynedd married an Irish lady. Another early Welsh writer couples Riryd, Madoc's brother, with Irish estates, and Riryd is found in the stories sailing with Madoc to America. The truth, perhaps, is then that Madoc retired from his native land and settled down for good in Ireland. If he made a journey hack to Wales to persuade more Welshmen to follow him there is nothing very improbable; from his absence would easily arise the stories of his disappearance. The legend borrowed many details from Columbus. Both Madoc and Columbus sail west, discover a new country, leave a small force, return home, go back to find the garrison mostly dead, and make speeches to persuade settlers to follow them. It is to be feared that Powel derived more from Columbian sources than from his hypothetical manuscripts.

Nor are the facts of the narrative in themselves probable. It is, to say the least, extremely unlikely that the Welsh should have succeeded in crossing the Atlantic in the twelfth century, before the invention of the compass, and before the art of navigation had been