Madoc

by Bernard Knight

  ‘You’ll take no ships and no men from Gwynedd, you lying schemer!’ snapped Dafydd. ‘This land is the rightful property of legitimate seed of Owain, not his bastards.’

  Madoc’s slow temper began to burn inside him.

  ‘For God’s sake, brothers, are you so besotted and obsessed with your claim to this damp landscape that you can see no other aims in life? For the last time, I have no interest in the politics of Gwynedd … I have no desire to usurp your selfish greeds … I came home to seek out those like myself who are disillusioned with feuding and intrigues. As soon as I have found them, I shall leave these shores for ever.’

  He turned on his heel and strode away from the glowering pair, with Svein grinning covertly at this outburst from his usually placid comrade.

  A week later, on the twenty-third of November, 1170, Owain Gwynedd died and with him passed the stability of North Wales for which he had so painstakingly worked during the previousthirty-three years of his reign. His funeral was a grand and solemn affair, attended by nobles from all over Wales, Caledonia, Ireland and even from France.

  In spite of the excommunication of Canterbury and Rome, the clergy of Bangor placed his body in a fine arched tomb near the high altar of the cathedral.

  But even as he was being laid to rest, turmoil was breaking out in many places. Henry II had just authorised the invasion of Ireland by his mercenary barons from south-west Wales and that island was in a state of near-panic and confusion. But near at hand, Dafydd and Rhodri could hardly wait for the burial service to finish before setting about their long-awaited vendetta and began hustling about Gwynedd raising support for their personal causes.

  ‘We would be well advised to shake the dust – or rather mud – of this place from our feet as soon as we can,’ growled Madoc’s Norse companion, as they sat in the hall one evening, eating the evening meal. Madoc had just returned from one of his frequent visits to little Gwenllian, who was happily settled at the court of Menai.

  Dafydd and Rhodri had been away from Aberffraw since the funeral, two weeks before, but this evening had come swaggering back, together with Hywel, the poet brother, and Cynan, yet another contender for part of the lands of Gwynedd.

  ‘Llywarch the bard has been whispering the same thing to me,’ commented Madoc. ‘He had a bad time here after I escaped him. He was accused of killing me, poor chap, and almost was brought to trial. It was only the discovery that the Gwennan Gorn had slipped out of the Afon Ganol that saved his neck.’

  ‘You have no father now to protect you, Madoc. Those apes there would dearly like to see their rivals reduced in number – slitting your throat would be an easy answer.’Svein nodded across the hall at the roistering group on the high table.

  ‘We can do little until the spring. It will be Easter before we dare venture out even as far as the Fortunate Isles. That means three months hanging about this unfriendly place.’

  ‘We’d never survive it, Madoc,’ muttered the Viking. ‘There would be another fire, or a knife in the night … something. We have to wait, but for God’s sake, do not let it be here.’

  After the meal, they walked out in the frosty December air to the river and stood looking at the Gwennan Gorn as she sat on the sand of the little river. Their minds were both far away,remembering her sitting on another beach, just inside the sandbar of the river, on their first arrival on the mainland of the New World.

  ‘I wonder how our brave friends are?’ rumbled Svein. ‘How severe is the winter there … we have no means of telling.’

  ‘Much less hard than here, I think,’ replied Madoc. ‘The place is far to the south of Wales, there may be no snow or even frost. That vegetation there was not of a tropical kind but neither was it the sort that you have in your harsh northern lands.’

  ‘The time must hang heavy for them … what can they do, perched on that little headland?’

  ‘Explore … Einion told me before we left that he intended to build more coracles and maybe a longer currach out of withies and deer hides, so that they could make a long expedition up the various mouths of the river, where we saw those islands in the stream.’

  They stood looking at the little ship again, marvelling that such a frail-looking craft could ever have gone that distance.

  ‘I think we should leave here as soon as we can get a crew together,’ said Svein decisively. ‘I feel a great evil brewing with your brothers. They have no brake to their ambitions now that their father has gone. They have a score to settle with you.’ Madoc was inclined to agree with him.

  ‘We could go to Riryd in Clochran. The English are reported to be fighting their way up from Wexford to Dublin, but we could land on the coast above the Liffey and make our way across country to Clochran. We need a crew first, though.’

  Svein slapped his hands together in the frosty air. ‘We crossed the great western ocean with only half a crew. We could cross the Irish Sea with two men, my friend.’

  Madoc pondered this. ‘We would have to return eventually, to pick up those who wish to return with us and those who want to bring their wives and children. That cannot be until the spring.’

  ‘Then come back at Easter … better that than wait to be murdered in our beds by your dear brothers,’ advised the Norseman.

  Two days later, they got together a scratch crew and took the Gwennan Gorn across to the Irish coast.

  They found Riryd, the Lord of Clochran, more than a little disturbed by the events in Ireland. ‘Last year, some Normanadventurers from Pembroke landed in Wexford and again this year we have more of them. They have established themselves in Dublin –with the hearty co-operation of your Norse kinsfolk,’ he said to Svein. ‘Now we hear that Henry, King of England, is worried about the rival power of these barons of his who have set up veritable kingdoms of their own here in Ireland. It seems likely that next season, he will bring an army to settle the matter.’

  The prospects at the manor of Clochran were uneasy, to say the least. When Riryd heard the full story of the Great Voyage and the colony of Welshmen left at Castell Newydd, he took no persuading at all to fit out a ship and join them on the next expedition in the spring.

  ‘I do not say that I will stay in your new land for ever, brother. But I cannot miss the chance to see it and the situation here is so gloomy that I would be glad to leave it until peace returns again.’

  His wife had died two years before and his daughters were either married or betrothed, so Riryd had no compunction about uprooting himself and voyaging off into the unknown.

  ‘But this is three months ahead of us,’ said Madoc.

  ‘I need that to find a good vessel. I think I can find a number of men from the Welsh settlement here who will be willing to join us. The prospect of having Norman overlords here within the next year is enough to make most men want to flee the country.’

  Riryd found a ship which suited his purpose and the two experienced ocean navigators helped him to direct refitting and equipping. The manor of Clochran had been a rich one and there was no lack of funds to fit new sails, strengthen the decking and add a tacking boom, coracles and all extras that the explorers had found so necessary on their epic trip.

  The vessel was another Norse knarr, very much like the Gwennan Gorn, though slightly longer and higher. It had no stag-horn nails, but the usual wooden dowel pins. However, it was a well-found craft and with a good crew, Madoc felt sure that it could survive the journey. With luck, they would miss another terrible storm like the one that hit them beyond the islands.

  ‘What shall we call her?’ asked Madoc, as they stood on the banks of the river and looked at the vessel gently swaying at her moorings.

  ‘She has an outlandish Viking name now,’ said Riryd, with awink at Svein. ‘So I’ll choose a good Christian Welsh name … what about Pedr Sant … the sacred Saint Peter was a seaman, even if it was only on Galilee.’

  So Pedr Sant it was and the name was carefully carved on the bow.

  Some days later, Madoc returned in t
he Gwennan Gorn to Gwynedd, leaving Svein with his friends and relatives in Dublin. The Norseman was now contemplating finding a strong Nordic blonde to take back to the new country, in case he decided to stay there for good.

  Madoc and his skeleton crew ran into dirty weather as they rounded the north of Anglesey, as he was bound for the creek of the Gele, where he wanted the vessel to be overhauled by the craftsmen who had built her.

  Wet and exhausted, they reached the little river and with difficulty got the Gwennan Gorn inside.

  Meirion, his chief seaman, promised to be back at the Gele within a month, together with all those who had promised to sail west a second time. Each man had promised to find at least one other man who was willing to come with them, preferably with a wife.

  Madoc spent a couple of days with the shipwrights, then took a horse and cautiously travelled westwards towards the mountains of Snowdonia.

  He came to the little castle of Dolwyddelan, where he had been bornand where his later life had really begun. None of the sons of Owain was there, but he learned from the castle residents that Iorwerth had been fobbed off with the estates of Nanconwy and Ardudwy, whilst Dafydd and Rhodri had divided up the whole of Owain’s domains between them. Hywel, the soldier-poet, was in Ireland and Maelgwyn, yet another brother, had established himself in part of Anglesey.

  It was obvious to Madoc that it would not be long before all the brothers would be at each other’s throats.

  He recruited a few of the castle staff for the expedition, after spending a whole evening regaling a spellbound audience about the Great Voyage and the attractions of the new land. They were not seamen, but it would be farmers and craftsmen that would be needed once they returned. In spite of Madoc’s frankwarnings of the dangers and hardships of the voyage, he left Dolwyddelan with a firm promise of nine emigrants, who would be at Abergele by the end of February.

  Madoc made his way down the Llyn peninsula to Aberdaron, the little port to which the Gwennan Gorn had limped after its battle with the terrors of Bardsey Sound. He came away after two weeks with another ten recruits for the new voyage, most of them expert seamen.

  By the time he made his way back to the Gele, via Conwy and Deganwy, he had mustered thirty more souls for the second expedition back to the New World.

  Sometimes at night, when he tossed and turned on his bed in some tavern or friendly court, he had guilty dreams about his ability to find the estuary beyond the sand spit or to even get within a few hundred miles of it. He had his precious map always in his pouch, with the sun-board readings and the reckoning of days sailed. In his saddlebag he had the magical lodestone carefully wrapped up and he hoped that with all this, his experience and a leavening of both luck and God’s will, he would be able to find the coast of the mainland.

  It was late February and still deep winter when he got back to the Gwennan Gorn. There was snow on the ground and ice on the streams and ponds.

  Meirion was already back there, with his wife and child. During the next weeks, the crew – both old and new – began drifting back, some with wives and a few with children of all ages.

  By the early days of March, there were forty-two souls assembled on the banks of the Gele. The vessel was as ready for sea as the skilled craftsmen could make her and all that was needed now was improvement in the weather. Taught by the experience of the last trip, Madoc took much more grain and meal aboard, as this was the shortest commodity on the first voyage. Sheep, goats and fowls were bought, some for food on the voyage, but others to establish breeding pairs when they reached the settlement.

  ‘We’ll be like Noah’s Ark,’ muttered Meirion, as he watched the animals being herded into their pitifully cramped pens in the hold. The overcrowding is going to be acute, especially with women and children aboard, thought Madoc. He got the shipwrights to add some extra boards along the edges of the two decks, to make the cargo hold smaller and to give more shelter beneath.

  Madoc’s anxiety to be off at the first sign of a break in the weather turned out to be a fortunate precaution.

  Three weeks before Easter, one of the younger members of the new crew came hurrying back to the camp, after a visit to his family in Conwy.

  ‘Prince Dafydd is on the march, they say. He is seeking out all who will not support him in his claim to be his father’s sole successor.’

  ‘Does he know that I am here, with the Gwennan Gorn and this camp of hopeful travellers?’ asked Madoc, worrying for the safety of those under his care.

  ‘I do not know, but I suspect that he will hear of it before he comes within ten miles. It is no secret and our efforts to recruit members have broadcast the news all over the district.’

  Madoc made up his mind in an instant.

  ‘We will sail for Dublin on tomorrow’s tide … it is not worth risking the whole venture for the sake of a few weeks. The weather is moderately good, it will see us across the small seas, even with a cargo of women, children and sheep.’

  Next day, they were hull-down on the horizon, well out of reach of Dafydd or any other interference. After two uncomfortable nights at sea, they anchored in the Dublin river.

  Madoc found the town in a state of unrest, with many Normans mingled with the Irish and Danes. There was uneasiness at the intentions of the King Henry of England and the town was preparing for siege as soon as the season for war came upon them.

  Svein was not there; he had taken ship to the Isles of Orkney, north of Caledonia, to visit some relatives and say farewell before his second trip into the unknown.

  Madoc took a horse to Clochran to see Riryd. His brother was not expecting him so soon.

  ‘The Pedr Sant is by no means ready yet, Madoc. I have promises of a crew of thirty-eight men, women and children, but provisioning and all the work of making ready is not nearly completed. I thought you would be another month yet.’

  Madoc explained the dangerous position in Gwynedd, but Riryd had similar worries. ‘Things are in a dangerous state here … the Normans are all along the coast and still coming in from Pembroke. Ironically, some are our own kinsmen, Madoc. They are part-Norman, part-Welsh, the progeny of the fitzGeralds, whose mother was Nest15,daughter of Rhys, King of South Wales. Our father’s sister, Gwenllian, married her brother Gruffydd, so we are related to those who now invade us.’

  ‘What’s to be done, then?’ asked Madoc, anxious for his shipload of women and children, lying in the Liffey.

  ‘I’d not stay there for a month or more … and you need that time until the weather breaks. Find a safer place.’

  Madoc sighed. ‘We have already run from Wales for the same reason. We are hounded now from Ireland. Where can we go next?’

  ‘What about France?’

  This pricked Madoc’s senses. ‘No need to go so far, there’sYnys Wair, the island they now call Lundy. We can be safe there, de Marisco is well known to me and we would be cut off by the sea from any foe. Henry of England has eyes on it, but I think his worries with Ireland will keep him off Lundy for more than the time we need.’

  A week later, all the crew and families from the Gwennan Gorn were safely camped in the outbuildings of Marisco Castle, perched on the lofty rock stuck in the entrance to the Severn Sea. De Marisco had welcomed Madoc warmly.

  A week after Easter, a balmy spring suddenly appeared. Rirydhad promised to come as soon as the weather improved bringing Svein with him and, true to his word, one blue-skied morning saw the Pedr Sant sail into the cove and anchor alongside the Gwennan Gorn.

  It was a Sunday the next day and all the eighty-two souls that were going on the great adventure assembled in the courtyard of the castle for De Marisco’s priest to say Mass and bless them on their journey.

  At noon, they trooped down to the two boats and set sail. The two tiny vessels, laden low in the water, slowly vanished over the western horizon.

  Jordan de Marisco watched them from his eyrie, instinctively conscious that something had happened this day on his island, something that would become
a legend to last long after he had returned to the dust.

  THE END

  * * *

  15Whose story is told in the book Lion Rampant

  HISTORICAL POSTSCRIPT

  (But see author’s note in the Preface to this edition)

  The argument about the Madoc story has gone on since Tudor times, with a considerable revival in interest in the past few years, both in Europe and America. The notable investigation by Richard Deacon, published in 1967, has turned a legend into a distinct possibility. This, together with the discovery by Helge Ingstad in 1960-68 of Norse settlements in Newfoundland, forms an important part of the evidence that Europeans reached the New World long before Columbus, whose motives and methods are currently undergoing much unfavourable historical examination.

  Some of the main points of the vindication of the Madoc legend are summarised below:

  Willem the Minstrel was a Flemish writer, possibly from the Abbey of Drongen, near Ghent. He spent a long time on the Welsh border, where he knew another writer Walter Map, who establishes the date of Willem’s active period.

  Willem wrote the famous Reynard the Fox about 1250, and the prologue to this mentions that he was also the author of The Romance of Madoc, an earlier work thought to have been lost. According to Deacon, part of it was found at Poitiers in the seventeenth century and a modern expert on the chronicles of the troubadours says that this must have been translated not later than 1300, possibly much earlier. Though only an incomplete précis, it states that “Madoc was the scion of a noble family, driven into exile”.

  Willem had the story from bards and sailors, who told him to keep it secret from the English, who would seek out Madoc if they knew of it. This was written within fifty years of the voyages, probably much less. Willem lived for a time on an island called ‘Ely’, which is more likely to have been Lundy than in the Fenland, as Ely was another name given to Lundy by the Norsemen, from the Welsh dedication of the church there toElen.