DECLINE OF GREENLAND SETTLEMENTS 



that, like the outlawed Eric the Red 500 years before, they 

 took refuge in distant Greenland, which they already knew. 

 But finally they may have come to grief; for among the 

 many " pirates " who " met with a miserable death, being either 

 slain by their friends or hanged on the gallows or drowned 

 in the waves of the sea," Paulus Eliae mentions " Pyning " and 

 "Pwthorss." 1 



We have yet to mention certain obscure statements about 

 another Northern sailor of this time, Johannes Scolvus (Jon 

 Skolv?)- The Spanish author, Francesco Lopez de Gomara, who 

 was a priest in Seville about 1550, and published his " Historia 

 de las Indias" (i.e., America) in 1553, says there of "la Tierra 

 de Labrador " : 



"Hither also came men from Norway with the pilot ['piloto,' i.e., navi- 

 gator] Joan Scoluo, and Englishmen with Sebastian Gaboto." 



As, according to Storm's showing [1886, p. 392], Gomara 

 met Glaus Magnus " in Bologna and Venice " (perhaps 

 about 1548), and says himself that the latter had given him 

 much information about northern waters and the sea route 

 from Norway, the statement about Scolvus may also be due 

 to him. 



An English State document — probably of 1575, and written 

 on the occasion of the preparations for Frobisher's first 

 voyage (1576) — gives a brief survey of earlier attempts to 

 find the North-West Passage,^ and mentions among others 



1 Monumento Historiae Danicae, ed. Holger Rordam, i. Copenhagen, 1873, 

 p. 28; L. Daae, 1882. 



2 Cf. G. Storm [1886]. B. T. de Costa [1880, p. 170] points out that Hakluyt 

 says that the voyage of this navigator is mentioned by Gemma Frisius and 

 Girava. Gemma Frisius published among other works a revised edition of 

 Petrus Apianus's " Cosmographicus Liber " in 1529. Girava published in 1553 

 " Dos Libros de Cosmographia," Milan, 1556. I have not had an opportunity 

 of referring to these authorities; the former, if this be correct, may have given 

 information about Scolvus earlier than Gomara. De Costa also says that on 

 the Rouen globe (i.e., the L'Ecuy globe, see p. 131) in Paris, of about 1540, 

 there is an inscription near the north-west coast of Greenland stating that 

 Skolnus (Scolvus) reached that point in 1476. 



3 Cf. R. CoUinson, 1867, pp. 3 f. 



129 



