Madoc's Hundred - Madoc Saga, Book 2 Author:Pat Winter The legend continuesÂ? — Madoc and his Welsh colony are forced northward by Native American enemies. They sail up the Mississippi River to the first city in North America, today called Cahokia, Illinois. In the 10th century, this place of pyramids and cornfields was home to thousands of people, long before there was a New York CityÂ? — An Archaeol... more »ogist Reviews Madoc and MadocÂ's Hundred
Â?Pat WinterÂ's first two novels of The Madoc Saga take inspiration from the legend that a Welsh prince set sail to colonize North America in the twelfth century A.D., the Medieval period in Britain and the Mississippian period in most of the Southeast. Whether such a voyage can be proven to have taken place is irrelevant to the novelist. How thoroughly and vividly the novelist can recreate the Middle Ages in North America is very relevant toÂ?(archaeologists)Â?reflecting both the state of our data and the effectiveness of our presentation of what we think we knowÂ?
Â?Some of us who work on the front lines of public education in archaeology often wonder if we are really making any headway, or less pessimistically, whether there is a bigger audience out there than we are reachingÂ?I think that the Madoc series is the best fictional recreation of the late prehistoric Southeast that I have ever read. We may argue some details, cringe occasionally at fictional license, but we should learn from the successes and ponder the points of disagreement that these two novels embody. And if, suddenly, we spend a moment seeing a village rather than a pile of shreds, Winter has done us a favor as well.Â?
Â?Kit Wesler, director, Wickliffe Mounds, Kentucky, from his review in Southeastern Archaeology, Vol. II, No. 2, Winter 1992, by the Southeastern Archaeological Conference« less