Tallen Cyenns, The Tale Of The Discovery Of America By An Irishman, A Norseman, Or A Welshman

It is found written in the Scrolls of Taloned Claws of where Tallen was talking with his longtime friend John FitzStephen about the stories he had heard of the discovery of a place called the "New World", specifically the Americas. It was also referred to as the "fourth part of the world". Each of these stories predates the more famous one of Christopher Columbus and the ships named the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria that set sail in 1492.

The first story is that of Naomh Breandán, or Saint Brendan the Navigator. Brendan was born in County Kerry, Ireland and is thought to have lived from 484 to 578. The "Navigatio Sancti Brendani" is the tale of Brendan and his monks travelling to what is thought to be Iceland, Greenland, and possibly even North America in search of ‘the Promised Land’. There are many versions of the story of Brendan’s travels but the translation from Latin is what Tallen was familiar with. The first Latin version of this text was from the late tenth century and is believed to be based on an earlier version from the ninth century

Irish Monks were known to travel and create monasteries in parts of continental Europe but also venture on hermitages to remote places and islands off of Ireland and Britain. There is evidence to show in the Icelandic Book Landnámabók that Irish Monks had reached Iceland by 795. Then by 870 the Norse had reached Iceland and forced out the Irish Monks because they did not wish to live with the ‘heathens’. The Irish had left behind books, bells, and croziers which helped in the identification of who the monks were. In the "Navigatio" Brendan and the monks find an island where they find a monastery. This monastery had a group of monks who had not seen other people in eighty years on the Island of the Community of Ailbe. It has been described that this as the Irish monastic tradition as wanting to go in silence to praise God, where monasteries were walled communities but hermitage on far off islands were also possible and happened.

The next story is about Leifr Eiríksson, also spelled Leif Erikson. Nicknamed Leif ‘the Lucky’ he was a Norse Viking who has been said to be the first European to have set foot on North American soil along with his crew in about the year of 1000. The European discovery of the lands the Norse called Vínland, ‘Wine Land’, on the eastern shores of North America, a landmass which was of course already inhabited. Vinland is thought to have encompassed the whole area from the Strait of Belle Isle in Newfoundland to the Gulf of St Lawrence and its southern shores, perhaps stretching to Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Here, The Saga of the Greenlanders chips in with additional, and sometimes divergent, information. This saga instead attributes the first sighting of, if not landing on, Vinland to Bjarni Herjólfsson, who here is the one who was blown off-course. Leif then hears of his land-sighting story back in Greenland, launches an expedition, and first reaches a glacier-covered stone slab of land he and his crew name Helluland, ‘Stone-slab Land’, likely northern Labrador and/or Baffin Island, and then a flat and forested land they call Markland, ‘Forest Land’, likely central Labrador. Eventually they come upon a lush land where they found a base they name Leifsbúðir, ‘Leif’s Booths’. It is while exploring the surrounding lands, especially further south, that Leif and his men discover timber and the grapes that inspire Vinland’s name.

In Erik the Red’s Saga, the base set up by Leif is instead named Straumfjǫrðr, ‘Fjord of Currents’. Its different name might be explained by the fact that this saga seems to downplay Leif’s role in general, focusing instead on his sister-in-law Gudrid and her husband Karlsefni who are depicted as leading one big expedition to Vinland. This is a possible result of a movement in the 13th century which sought to canonize Bishop Björn Gilsson, a direct descendant of theirs. Either way, Leifsbúðir/Straumfjǫrðr, or whatever it may have been called, became the biggest archaeological boost to Leif’s Vinland story in 1961, when the remains of a Norse settlement were discovered at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula, in present-day Canada. Eight turf-walled dwellings, including what looks like chieftains’ halls, other large halls, smaller halls and huts, all with large storage spaces and some with workshops built in, were uncovered and date to between 980-1020. They thus fit the sagas’ time frames. A ringed pin of the Dublin Viking type was found there, too, tying in with information from the sagas about the Viking explorers having had family connections in Ireland being that Leif’s mother having Irish ancestry.

And the last story, the one of Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd, also spelled Madog. It is now well known that Viking explorers reached parts of the east coast of Canada around 1100 and that Icelandic Leif Erikson’s Vinland may have been an area that is now part of the United States. What is less well known is that a Welshman may have followed in Erikson’s footsteps, this time bringing settlers with him to Mobile Bay in what is now modern day Alabama.

Owain Gwynedd, king of Gwynedd in the 12th century, had nineteen children, only six of whom were legitimate. Madoc, one of the illegitimate sons, was born at Dolwyddelan Castle in the Lledr valley between Betws-y-Coed and Blaenau Ffestiniog. On the death of the king in December 1169, the brothers fought amongst themselves for the right to rule Gwynedd. Madoc, although brave and adventurous, was also a man of peace. In 1170 he and his brother, Riryd, sailed from Aber-Kerrik-Gwynan on the North Wales Coast, now Rhos-on-Sea, in two ships, the Gorn Gwynant and the Pedr Sant. Sometime after landing in what is now Alabama, Prince Madoc then returned to Wales with great tales of his adventures and persuaded others to return to America with him. They sailed from Lundy Island in 1171, but were never heard of again.

This account of the discovery of America by a Welsh prince, whether truth or myth, was apparently used by Queen Elizabeth I as evidence to the British claim to America during its territorial struggles with Spain.There was a plaque was placed alongside Mobile Bay in 1953 by the Daughters of the American Revolution. “In memory of Prince Madog,” the inscription reads, “a Welsh explorer who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language.”

There are some speculations of the descendants of Tallen Cyenns arriving in the "New World" as early as the 1630's. Although there are no records of the surname of Cyenns, it may be possible that an alternate spelling was adopted. This was the case of Tallen's longtime friend John FitzStephen when John's family was said to have also migrated to America. At some point later it was thought that a few from Tallen's family had settled in different parts of the state of Alabama.