DECLINE OF GREENLAND SETTLEMENTS 



which appeared upon maps more than a hundred years before 

 Bering Strait was discovered by the Russian Deshenev in 

 1648. But the name may sometimes have been extended 

 to the whole of the strait, called above, p. 130, the Strait of 

 the Three Brethren, which was assumed to go north of 

 America to the Pacific. What is new in Horn's statement 

 is that the voyage is said to have been made under the 

 auspices of Christiern I.; it may be supposed that he knew 

 enough of the history of Denmark to draw this conclusion 

 from the date, 1476. 



This is what is known from old sources about this 

 Scolvus and his voyage. It must be remembered that the 

 name of Labrador (in various forms) was used on the maps 

 of the sixteenth century both for Greenland and Labrador, 

 and was originally the name of the former. It is there- 

 fore most probable that the statements about Scolvus's 

 voyage referred in the first instance to Greenland, which in 

 the first part of the sixteenth century was known as 

 Labrador. 



To sum up what has been said above, we have, on the 

 one hand, statements, from wholly different sources, of one 

 or more voyages to Greenland under the leadership of 

 Pining and Pothorst, in the time of Christiern I. — i.e., before 

 1 481; on the other hand, we have statements, probably 

 from several, but at least from two sources independent of 

 each other, about a voyage, also to Greenland, with the 

 pilot Johannes Scolvus, from Denmark or more probably 

 from Norway, in the time of Christiern I., and this is even 

 referred to a particular year, 1476. One is therefore led to 

 conclude, as G. Storm has already done, that we are here 

 concerned with the same voyage or voyages to Greenland, 

 which were made under the leadership of the two " skippers " 

 and freebooters. Pining and Pothorst, with Johannes Scolvus 

 (Jon Skolvsson?) as pilot or navigator. In some authorities 

 of Scandinavian origin the voyage was connected with the 

 names of the real leaders, while in Southern authorities it 



133 



