In good time, on the waters, I,
By liberal aid, will hunter be.
Madoc the brave, of aspect fair,
Owain of Gwynedd's offspring true,
Would have no land,—man of my soul!—
Nor any wealth, except the seas.
Madoc am I, who, through my life,
By sea will seek my wonted prey."
Madoc was a navigator, and made the sea his home. No doubt can be entertained on that point. In the above quotation the poet likens himself to Madoc as the true type of a sailor.
It has been said that the Welsh Bards were historians. They were retained in families of importance to record the actions of their ancestors and those of the Bards themselves in odes and songs. While they may have employed a poetic license in their construction, the facts themselves were not lost out of sight. So far as can be known, it appears that these odes were written prior to any definite notion of a Western world, known subsequently as the American Continent. Madoc's voyages might not have been very familiar to many except the Welsh, and they were ignorant whither he went. One thing, however, is absolutely certain, that this tradition having existed for centuries could not have been invented, as some have suspected, to support the English against the Spanish claims of prior discovery. A period of three hundred and twenty-two years intervened between that of Madoc and that of Columbus.