33 



They relate how the heathen CareU every day come with their 

 military force from the unknown regions of the north to Green- 

 land. They are dwarfs who use skin-boats. Claudius Clavus 

 himself had seen some of them, who had been taken captive 

 on the sea in a little skin-boat, which was at that time still 

 preserved in the cathedral at Nidaros (Drontheim in Norway). 

 In the same place, there is also a long skin-boat w^hich had 

 been seized in olden times together with some pygmies. 



This is the first time we have distinct mention of the big 

 and the little skin-boat, the kajak and the umiak. The 

 account agrees in a remarkable manner Avith the information 

 given by the Swedish historian Olaus Magnus. He writes in 

 his Historia de gentium septentrionalium variis conditionibus 

 (Romce 1555, Basil 1567) in Book II, Ch. 9, that he himself 

 in the year 1505 saw two skin-boats fastened to the wall, as if 

 for display, over the west entrance of Oslo (Drontheim) Cathe- 

 dral, and that these boats had been seized from the natives of 

 Greenland in the days of King Hakon (probably Hakon IV, who 

 reigned in Norway from 1355 to 1380). Of no less interest is 

 his description of the human habitations which are seen on 

 the coast of Greenland and "which resemble hulls of ships 

 with the keel uppermost; they are built of the ribs of whales 

 and are covered with moss and heather". Above the chapter: 



jyarte 2)oli septentrionalis. Non igitur Oceaniis alluit limen terrae 

 rede sub polo ut omnes piriscorum mictores in-ofitentur veluti honestis- 

 sime nobis Niger mathematicus ostendit." (Liber X, p. CC.) 



J. Schoner: Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio 101У: 

 "Et ab Ulis [seil. Uildlappmanni in Pilappelundiu] ad occasion nio- 

 rantur Pigmei parvi longitudine cubitales quos vidit Claudius Chlaus 

 Niger captos in mari in namcula modica de corio praeparatu, quae 

 hac nostra fempestate in ecclesia Cathedrali Nodrosiae reservatur. 

 Habent ibidem navem longum etiam de corio quae quondam cum 

 Pigmeis etiam capta erat. Haec itaque jjortio p[arte] maxima Ptho- 

 l[emaeo] incognita permansit. Sunt utique asperrimae et frigidissimae 

 montuosae et sylvestres ас nemorosae regiones, quarum incolae plus 

 de piscatura et venatione vivunt quam de pane, quia raro ibi annona 

 ob frigoris excellentiam." (Regiones asperrimae.) 

 XXXI. 3 



