"Madoc, true whelp of Owain Gwynedd, would not have land or great wealth, but the broad sea," and alludes to his passion for the sea.[1] But even here from the context it appears that the Madoc referred to was a fisherman rather than a navigator, and there is not the slightest indication that he ever made a great voyage.[2] These passages exhaust all that can be found in the Welsh bards, as they now survive, which has any relation to Madoc ap Owain.
The Welsh historians are not more satisfactory. A triad which has been often quoted speaks thus: "The three vanished losses of the Isle of Britain: First, Gavran, son of Aeddan, and his men, who went in search of the Green Isles of Floods and were never heard of more; second, Merlin ... who went to sea in the House of Glass; third, Madoc, son of Owain Gwynedd, who went to sea with three hundred men in ten ships, and it is not known where they went." It is to be noted that here Madoc is coupled with two wholly mythical persons, and that no knowledge is expressed of the place to which he went. The triad is by experts ascribed to the sixteenth century, and has no sort of historic value,[3] even if its meaning were altogether clear, which it is not. The next writer cited is Ieuan Brechva, who is quoted as saying that "an illegitimate son of Owain Gwynedd accompanied Madoc across the broad sea to lands which they had found, and there dwelt."[4] But as yet the passage has not been discovered, and the word translated "broad sea" might perfectly well mean the Irish Sea. Guttyn Owain's chronicle has been as recklessly adduced, as saying that Madoc sailed with ten ships, but here, too, the passage cited cannot be discovered. Some have surmised that the original manuscripts have perished, and that only mutilated copies have survived.[5] This is doubtless possible, yet what is required is positive evidence, and the uncritical assumptions of perfervid patriots and annalists cannot be regarded with too great suspicion.
In its present form the story obtains currency late in the sixteenth century, and apparently originates with the discoveries of one David Ingram, who sailed with Hawkyns to the West Indies in 1568, and afterwards travelled on the American continent. Finding that the natives called a certain bird "penguin," he jumped to the conclusion that this was the Welsh word "pengwyn" or "white
