Welsh Journals

of historical legend he does not go further afield and seek to connect the story of Madoc with survivals of Celtic mythology. And it is rather strange that he should not have done so, for one of the most important surviving literary documents of the legend is a triad in which Madoc's disappearance' comes third, following two others which are obviously mythical. The triad in question as quoted by Stephens (p. 20) from The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (ii. p. 59, Gee's edition, p. 401.) is as follows Tri Difancoll Ynys Prydain Cyntaf, Gafran ab Aeddan a'i wyr a aethant i'r mor ynghyrch y Gwerdonau Llion, ac ni chlywyd mwyach am danynt. Ail, Merddyn Bardd Emrys Wledig a'i naw Beirdd Cylfeirdd a aethant i'r mor yn y Ty Gwydrin, ac ni bu son i ba le ydd aethant y Trydydd, Madawg ab Owain, a aeth i'r mor a thrichannyn gydag ef mewn deg llong, ac ni wyddys i ba le ydd aethant. Or, in Stephens's own translation 'The three Vanished Losses of the Isle of Britain First, Gavran son of Aeddan and his men, who went to the Green Isles of Floods, and were never heard of more. Second, Merddin, the Bard of Aurelius Ambrosius, and his nine Scientific Bards, who went to sea in the House of Glass, and there has been no account whither they went. Third, Madoc, son of Owen Gwynedd, who went to sea with three hundred men in ten ships, and it is not known to what place they went'. Enough has been written elsewhere about Merlin and his house (or ship) of glass, and it would be superfluous to show how easily and naturally the story lends itself to an interpretation along the lines of solar mythology. Further, analogy with the Irish tales referred to above would seem to suggest that Merlin was originally conceived as sailing in his ship of glass to an island in the west, and there is a tra- dition that this island was that nowadays known as Bardsey Island (John Rhys [Hibbert] Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, p. 155.) We have taken the second difancoll' or disappearance' first as being better known, but the first is still more obviously an echo of the belief in the happy isles of the west, the Green Isles of Floods'. This was the explanation of the story of the sons of Gavran given by Robert Southey in a note to the eleventh chapter of his Madoc, and Sir John Rhys (Celtic Folklore, i pp. 170-3) after quoting this note, adds other instances of Welsh folk belief in mysterious fairy islands in the