140 DANIEL BRUUN. 
course between Eskimoes and Greenlanders could be impressed by 
milder feelings. The accounts in the meantime become more and more 
scarce. In 1407 a man was burnt in Greenland for having enticed another’s 
wife by magic art. In 1408 the Greenland official executed a wedding 
ceremony in Hvalsey-church in the eastern settlement. In 1410 we 
hear for the last time of a ship coming home from there, and from now 
on darkness spreads over the colony. 
In a papal letter, from 1448 a description is given of the colony’s 
condition and its disorganization in 1418, after an attack of the “heathen 
fleet”, and thereafter the following want of priests. But, as A. BIÖRNBO 
says, this record showed itself in such essential points to be founded 
upon false notes given by two deceitful priests, so that one dares not 
rely on them. 
Besides there is only one single valuable communication in the 
time between 1410 and 1492. It dates from the Danish Chartographer 
CLAUDIUS CLAVUS, Greenland’s first charterer (b. 1388). He says he has 
seen “the unbelieving Karels” (i. e.: Eskimoes) come with a numerous 
army down to Greenland, undoubtedly from the other side of the north 
pole. He says nothing about the colonists, and his Greenland names of 
places are feigned. He had not visited Greenland himself. 
A glimpse in the darkness, which enveloped the last period of the 
Greenland colony’s history, is exhibited through a papal letter, which 
a catholie priest has brought to light several years ago. The letter is 
from 1492 — the celebrated year in which Columbus discovered Ame- 
rica. It is remarkable to ascertain, that just at this juncture one seems 
to have got news in the south from the new world’s most northern part. 
“It is said that Greenland is an island lying at the end of the world, 
that the inhabitants there have no bread, wine nor oil, but live on dried 
fish and milk. On account of the surrounding ice, navigation to this 
island is seldom, and landing can only take place in August, after the 
melting of the ice; therefore one believes that no ship, in the last eighty 
years has been there, nor that a bishop or priest has lived there. And 
the consequence has been, that the most of the inhabitants have fallen 
away from the christian belief and have no other memorandum of it 
than that once a year an alter-cloth (corporale) is shown, which had — 
been used by the last bishop about 100 years before. Now, on the 
appeal of the then Cardinal Boreras, the Benedictine monk Marais 
had offered to go as missionary to that country so as to convert the 
apostates, and had wished to risk both life and health on this enterprise 
by personally travelling there by ship.” 
The letter thus insinuates that news of the country had been brought 
from Greenland to Europe, and its contents clearly bear witness of the 
state of decomposition which prevailed in the Norse colonies (i. e.: the 
eastern settlement). There can hardly be any doubt as to the correct- 
ness of the letter’s contents. 
