I privately thought that the fantasy view of a ‘voyage to fairyland’ was implausible but having no means to properly assess or date the poem I could not advance very far. At a later stage I became familiar with legends gathered by John Dee that Arthur had visited America in circa 530. These legends from Holland and northern Europe were quite different to the Welsh material. This reinvigorated my study of Preideu Annwfyn and I wondered whether the unusual ‘ox’ with the huge head and neck, seen by the bard in Annwfyn, may have been the buffalo. I also wondered whether the mounds at kaer sidi in Annwfyn, thought to be fairy mounds under the fantasy interpretation, could have been created by the ‘moundbuilders’, native Americans of the Hopewell culture. For a number of years I considered the possibility that Annwfyn could be America but my scepticism would periodically surface and I would reject it as lacking sufficient evidence.

Eventually I launched a concerted attack on the problem hoping that a broader and deeper study would decide the matter. I gained access to much better, modern translations of Preideu Annwfyn and also studied another Welsh poem Kat Godeu that had a 16-line section on Annwfyn. This explictly described the torrid fighting in Annwfyn and the death of a lord that the poet called ‘the Boar’. Given that Annwfyn is uniquely associated with Arthur, it is highly probable that the bard was referring to Arthur’s death. I also discovered a third poem, Kadeir Teÿrnon, that had many similarities to the first two and which gave surprising information on Arthur, including his home location in Britain. All three poems purported to be composed by Arthur’s bard and I wondered whether this could actually be true. If it were, it would give priceless information on Arthur far in excess of the other meagre sources.

As I continued my research I found links between incidents in Preideu Annwfyn and in early Irish works (dated to the late 600s or early 700s) where the latter incidents appeared to be derived from Preideu Annwfyn. This suggested that Preideu Annwfyn could be very early indeed. A further indication of the poem’s early date came from the bard’s repeated abuse of the monks in five of the eight stanzas. The bard composed Preideu Annwfyn as a tribute to the dead Arthur but his anger at the monks was unleashed in the poem, where he called them ‘little men’ and cowards. This emotional outburst seemed to be incompatible with the view that the poem was just for entertainment, a fantasy describing Arthur’s visit to a fairyland. What could have caused the bard’s rage? The obvious answer to this was the vicious attack of the British cleric, Gildas, on his own people in his Ruin of Britain, where he berated the kings, the bards and the military. The bard seemed to me to be responding to the insults of Gildas. As Gildas wrote circa 540, the composition of Preideu Annwfyn seems to have been shortly after this, when Gildas’ work was being widely disseminated. This would put Preideu Annwfyn near the middle of the sixth century.

After a thorough study of all the evidence, as detailed in the book, I am now convinced that the historical explanation of a voyage to 6th-century America is the best explanation of all the data, and the only credible interpretation. It best explains the strong emotional content of the poems, in particular, the bard’s repeated distress at the loss of men and the death of Arthur. In all three poems the bard mentions Arthur’s death and makes it clear that he held Arthur in the highest esteem. I was particularly touched by the bard’s tribute to Arthur in Kat Godeu:

‘Shining his name, strong of hand; brilliantly he directed the host’.