Madog ab Owain Gwynedd

The Oxford Companion to British History | 2002 | 620 words | Copyright

Madog ab Owain Gwynedd. Legendary hero. Madog was reputed to have sailed westwards c.1180, never reappeared, and was supposed to have discovered America. In 1790 John Evans set off to find the lost Welsh tribes but was disappointed: Robert Southey wrote a poem ‘Madoc’ in 1805. The first mention of the story is in Tudor times, 400 years after the event, and it is merely one of countless heroic myths. But John Dee in 1577 used the legend of Madog to argue that a great Welsh colony had been established in America by King Arthur, and he coined the term ‘British empire’.

J. A. Cannon

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JOHN CANNON. "Madog ab Owain Gwynedd." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

JOHN CANNON. "Madog ab Owain Gwynedd." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-MadogabOwainGwynedd.html

JOHN CANNON. "Madog ab Owain Gwynedd." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-MadogabOwainGwynedd.html

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