Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd

Madoc (Madog) ab Owain Gwynedd was a folkloric twelfth-century Welsh explorer, attested to be the son of Owain ap Gruffudd (Owain Gwynedd), King of Gwynedd and Prince of the Welsh, who was said to have taken a sea voyage west from Wales after the death of his father in 1170, during which he discovered an unknown land, subsequently returning to Wales and organising a colonial expedition to said land, one that was never heard from again following their departure. During the Age of Discovery, the story of Madoc was seized on as part of English efforts to establish claims in the Americas, and later still became the origin for American colonial folklore regarding Welsh Indians in North America (which, in turn, may have played a part in the Cherokee folklore of the Moon-Eyed People).