300 Years before Columbus…
Native American tradition tells of a brave group of pale skinned explorers who many generations ago crossed a ‘Great Water’ to get to their lands; these people called themselves ‘Welsh’ and this is their story…
Join Prince Madoc and his intrepid band of followers as they turn their backs on treachery and duplicity and undertake a voyage that will test their togetherness, belief and fighting spirit; taking them beyond the known boundaries of civilization to distant lands far to the west.
Prince Madoc ap Owain was an illegitimate son of the great Prince of Wales, Owain Gwynedd. Destined like many of his siblings to be consigned to historical anonymity, it seems that Madoc had other ideas. Instead of obscurity, adventure beckoned and trailing in the footsteps of Norse explorer of yore, Madoc and his followers headed across the Atlantic Ocean, making final landfall at Mobile Bay in modern day Alabama; some three hundred years before Signore Colombo. It is hypothesized that from there they eventually headed up river into the interior of the country (remains of stone forts that some attribute to the Welsh explorers can be found in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee).
My own Prince Madoc adventure began in more modest circumstances, with an e-mail from my brother-in-law back home in North Wales. Had I heard of a Welsh prince who’d discovered America? I hadn’t, but that soon changed as I voraciously researched.
Initially my ambitions stretched no further than a factual article or two, perhaps a modest blog, but the more I dug the more I felt that Madoc deserved more. Perhaps I was driven on by the fact that I was also a Welshman who had journeyed across the Atlantic - albeit in considerably more comfort and with distinctly less peril - to call this continent home?
Could I really write a book though? I’d dabbled as a child, but nothing since. I scoured the internet for tips and advice and discovered a whole community out there for budding authors. I started a spreadsheet to track my daily and weekly word totals and every day I lost myself in 12th century Wales. My characters took on life and writing allowed me to disappear from the everyday mundane.
I decided to pen the tale as a trilogy and several months later the first book was finished. Exciting? Well to be honest, I felt a little flat. I started to have withdrawal symptoms; what was I going to do without my daily fix of Madoc, Cynwrig, Fergal, Ioan and the rest of my protagonists? Then there was the editing…Long story short; after completing books two and three, a chance conversation convinced me to combine and re-edit the three books into one, and 1170 was born…or should that be reborn?
David Pryce
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About the Author
David Pryce was born and bred in North Wales; after graduating with a Mining Engineering degree he spent the next seven years living and working in Southern Africa. He currently resides in Colorado, but returns to North Wales on a regular basis to visit family and rediscover his intrinsic ‘Welshness’. This also affords him the opportunity to eat some decent fish and chips and sink a pint or three of real beer! You can visit David online at www.wales2america.com and connect with him on twitter @Madog1170
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