THE DECLINE OF THE NORSE SETTLEMENTS IN GREENLAND
[Sidenote: Decline of the Greenland settlements]
The Eastern and Western Settlements in Greenland seem, as we have said, to
have grown rapidly immediately after the discovery of the country and the
first settlement there. Their flourishing period was in the eleventh,
twelfth, and part of the thirteenth centuries; but in the fourteenth they
seem to have declined rapidly; notices of them become briefer and briefer,
until they cease altogether after 1410, and in the course of the following
hundred years the Norse population seems to have disappeared entirely. The
causes of this decline were many.[72] It has been thought that it was
chiefly due to an immigration into Greenland on a large scale of Eskimo,
who gradually overpowered and exterminated the Norsemen; but, as will be
shown later, there is no ground for believing this; even if hostile
encounters took place between them, these cannot have been of great
importance.
In the first place the decline must be attributed to changes in the
relations with Norway. From the "King's Mirror" (cf. vol. i. p. 277),
amongst other authorities, we see that the Greenlanders doubtless had to
manage to some extent without such European wares as flour and bread; they
lived mainly by sealing and fishing, and also by keeping cattle, which
gave them milk and cheese. But there were many necessary things, such as
iron for implements and weapons, and to some extent even wood[73] for
larger boats and ships, which had to be obtained from Europe, besides the
encouragement and support which were afforded in many ways by
communication with the outer world. This was not of small moment to people
who lived in isolation under such hard conditions, at the extreme limit at
which a European culture was possible; it wanted little to turn the scale.
It is therefore easy to understand that as soon as communication with the
mother country declined, the conditions of life in Greenland became so
unattractive that those who had the chance removed elsewhere, and
doubtless in most cases to Norway.
[Sidenote: Decline in reproduction]
But at the same time there was certainly a physiological factor involved.
For the healthy nourishment of a European cereals (hydro-carbons) are
necessary, and there can be no doubt that a prolonged exclusive diet of
meat and fat will in the case of most Europeans reduce the vital force,
and not least the powers of reproduction. This agrees with my own
experience and observation under various conditions, as, for instance,
during ten consecutive months' exclusive diet of meat and fat. It is also
confirmed by physiological experiments on omnivorous animals. The
Greenlanders were reduced to living by sealing, fishing, and keeping
cattle; milk, with its sugar of milk, was their chief substitute for the
hydro-carbons in cereals; besides this, they no doubt collected
crowberries, angelica and other vegetables; but even during the short
summer this cannot have been sufficient to counterbalance the want of
flour. It is therefore probable that their powers of reproduction
underwent a marked decrease, and they became a people of small fecundity.
The Eskimo have had thousands of years for adapting themselves through
natural selection to their monotonous flesh-diet, since those among them
who were best fitted for it had the better chance of producing offspring;
there is certainly a great difference between individuals in this respect;
some of us are by nature more vegetarian, while others are more
carnivorous. It is therefore natural that the present-day Eskimo should be
better suited for this diet; but it is none the less striking that the
rate of productiveness among them is also low.
As, then, the Greenlanders' communications with Norway fell off more and
more, their imports of corn and flour finally ceased altogether. Their
cattle-keeping must then have declined as well, since they would have
little opportunity of renewing their stock or getting other kinds of
supplies, when bad years intervened and the greater part of the stock had
to be slaughtered or died of hunger. Consequently the people became still
more dependent on sealing; and thereby the cattle must have been
neglected. In this way their diet would become even less varied, since
milk would be lacking, and their reproduction would be further restricted.
Add to this that their average proficiency in sealing, at first in any
case, was doubtless not to be compared with that of the Eskimo, and that
they were without salt for preserving their catch, which therefore had to
be dried or frozen. They were thus not able to lay up a large provision,
and were always more and more dependent on occasional catches. It is easy
to understand that their power of resistance was not great, when bad
seasons for sealing occurred, or when they were ravaged by disease, and it
is not surprising if the population decreased.
[Sidenote: Cessation of communication with Europe]
The cessation of the communication of Greenland with Iceland and Norway
came about in the following way: between 1247 and 1261, during the reign
of Håkon Håkonsson, Greenland voluntarily became subject to the Norwegian
crown, whilst before this it had been a free State like Iceland. In 1294,
trade with the tributary countries of Norway, Greenland among them, was
declared a sort of royal monopoly or privilege, which the king could farm
out to Norwegian subjects. The result of this was that only the king's
ships--and of these there was as a rule only one, called "Knarren," for
the Greenland traffic--were permitted to sail there for the purposes of
trade,[74] and this was the beginning of the end. Even before that time
communication with Greenland was rare. Thus we read in the "King's Mirror"
that people seldom went there. But now, when the royal trading ship was
practically the only one that made the voyage, things were to be much
worse. Frequently several years were occupied on one trip. As some time
elapsed also between each voyage, it will be understood that, at the best,
the communication was not lively. But when it occasionally happened that
"Knarren" was wrecked, things were still worse. That the communication may
have been defective as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century is
seen from a letter from Bishop Arne, of Bergen, to Bishop Tord in
Greenland, of June 22, 1308, wherein it is taken for granted that the
death of King Eric nine years before, in 1299, was not yet known in
Greenland. In the middle of the fourteenth century, for instance,
"Knarren" returned to Bergen in 1346 safe and sound and with a very great
quantity of goods; but perhaps did not sail again until 1355, and we hear
nothing of her return before 1363 (?). In 1366 we hear that "Knarren" was
again fitted out; but she was wrecked north of Bergen in the following
year, probably on the outward voyage. In the year following a new trading
ship must actually have arrived with the new bishop, Alf; but it is stated
that Greenland had then been without a bishop for nineteen years. In 1369
the Greenland ship seems again to have been sunk off Norway.[75]
It looks as if these voyages of "Knarren" became rarer and rarer, until at
the beginning of the fifteenth century (1410) they presumably ceased
altogether; in any case, we hear no more of them. Even though the
Greenland traffic may have paid, it cost money to fit out "Knarren," and
when there was so much doing in other quarters, it was not always easy to
procure the necessary funds. Another reason for the decline was the
growing influence and power of the Hanseatic League over trade and
navigation in Norway. Together with the Victualien Brethren and the
adherents of the captive King Albrekt of Sweden, the Leaguers took and
sacked Bergen in 1393. In 1428 the town was again taken by the Hanseatic
League. It may easily be understood that events of this kind had a
disturbing and perhaps entirely paralysing effect on the Greenland
traffic, which had its headquarters in this town. Moreover, Norway had
before this been much weakened by the Black Death, which visited the
country in 1349. It raged with special virulence in Bergen; but there is
no notice of the disease having spread to Greenland; perhaps that country
was spared through "Knarren" not having sailed there before 1355, and
probably no other ship having made the voyage in the interval. In 1392
there was again a severe pestilence throughout Norway, and many people
died. In that year too a great many ships were wrecked. There were thus a
number of misfortunes at that time, and the people of Norway had enough to
occupy them in their own affairs. Another circumstance unfavourable to the
communication with Greenland was the union of Norway with Denmark, and for
a time with Sweden. The seat of government was thereby removed to
Copenhagen, and interest in Norway, and especially in its so-called
tributary countries, was further greatly diminished by the larger claims
of Denmark and Sweden.
It is reasonable to suppose that under such conditions the settlements in
Greenland, which were almost entirely cut off, must have decayed;
comparatively few, perhaps, were able to get a passage, and left the
country by degrees; but the people declined in numbers; they adopted an
entirely Eskimo mode of living, and mixed with the Eskimo, who perhaps at
the same time spread southwards in greater numbers along the west coast of
Greenland. It was remarked in the last chapter that the Norsemen, when
they arrived in the country, evidently looked down upon the stone-age,
troll-like Skrælings, whom they could hunt and ill-use with impunity; with
their iron weapons, their warlike propensities, and their larger vessels,
they may perhaps have been able to maintain this imaginary superiority in
the early days, so long as they still had some kind of supplies from
abroad. But it is obvious that these relations must have been
fundamentally changed when this communication gradually ceased, and they
were reduced, without any support from Europe, to make the best of the
country's resources; then the real superiority of the Eskimo in these
surroundings asserted its full rights, and the Greenlanders had to begin
to look upon them in a very different light. It is therefore perfectly
natural that from this very fourteenth century a fundamental change in the
relations between Norsemen and Skrælings set in. And that such was the
case seems to result in many ways from the meagre information we possess.
[Sidenote: Gisle Oddsson's annals on the decline of the Greenlanders]
In the Annals of Bishop Gisle Oddsson, written in Iceland in Latin before
1637, we read under the year 1342 [G. Storm, 1890a, pp. 355, f.; Grönl.
hist. Mind., iii. p. 459]:
"The inhabitants of Greenland voluntarily forsook the true faith and
the religion of the Christians, and after having abandoned all good
morals and true virtues turned to the people of America ('ad Americæ
populos se converterunt'); some also think that Greenland lies very
near to the western lands of the world. From this it came about that
the Christians began to refrain from the voyage to Greenland."
It is not known from whence Gisle Oddsson took this statement. As the
expression "the people of America" ("Americæ populi") is a curious one,
and as the statements in the bishop's annals following that quoted above
are entirely myths and inventions taken from Lyschander's "Grönlands
Chronica" (but originally derived from Saxo and Adam of Bremen), Storm
regarded the whole account as spurious and lacking any mediæval authority.
Interpreting, curiously enough, "ad Americæ populos se converterunt" to
mean that the Greenlanders had emigrated to America, Storm supposes that
this may be a hypothesis "formed to explain the disappearance from
Greenland of the old Norwegian-Icelandic colony." But the meaning of the
passage can scarcely be interpreted otherwise than as translated above,
that the Greenlanders had forsaken Christianity, given up good morals and
virtues, and had been converted to the belief and customs of the American
people (i.e., the Skrælings). The people of America must be a strained
expression the bishop has used to denote the heathen Skrælings (who
inhabited Greenland and the American lands) in contradistinction to the
Christian Europeans. Greenland was frequently regarded in Iceland in those
times as a part of America (cf. the map, p. 7). Hans Egede, for example,
thought the natives of Greenland were "Americans." In other words, the
statement simply means that in 1342 a report came that the Greenlanders
were associating amicably with the heathen Skrælings (which was forbidden
by the ecclesiastical law of that time), and had begun to adopt their mode
of life; which, in fact, is extremely probable.
The question is, then, from whence Gisle Oddsson may have derived this,
which is not known from any other source. Storm thought it out of the
question that it was taken from Lyschander (from whom the same annals
have borrowed so much else); but we cannot be so sure of this. After
having related the volcanic eruption and disasters in Iceland in 1340
(also recorded by Gisle Oddsson), Lyschander continues:
"Norway and Sweden and Greenland also
They were hereafter well able to perceive
That such things boded ill to them.
These kingdoms they came into the hands of the Dane,
And Greenland went astray on the strand,
Not long after these times."
Whatever may be meant by this strained, obscure expression about Greenland
(is "strand" a misprint for "stand"--"went astray in its condition" ?), it
might at any rate be interpreted to mean that its inhabitants had been
converted (gone astray) to a heathen religion (the people of America);
"not long after these times" (i.e., after 1340) may thus have been made
into 1342. But the mention of a definite date--which, it may be remarked,
would suit very well for the time when the Greenlanders passed into Eskimo
in larger numbers, at any rate in the Western Settlement (cf. Ivar
Bárdsson's description, see below, p. 108)--may possibly indicate that
some ancient authority or other is really the foundation for the
statement, and perhaps also for the lines quoted from Lyschander. Finn
Magnussen [Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 459] thinks that Gisle Oddsson may
have derived much information from the archives and library of Skálholdt
cathedral, which was burnt in 1630.
[Sidenote: Conversion of the Greenlanders into Eskimo]
Whether genuine or not, this statement may correctly describe the fate of
the Greenland settlements. Deserted by the mother country, and left to
their own resources, the Greenlanders were forced to adopt the Eskimo mode
of life, and became absorbed in them. This took place first in the more
northerly and more thinly populated Western Settlement, and later in the
Eastern Settlement as well. The Eskimo with their kayaks and their sealing
appliances were the superiors of the Greenlanders in sealing (as appears
from the account of Björn Jorsalafarer), and their mode of life was
better suited to the conditions of Greenland; it is therefore incredible
that their culture should not gain the upper hand in an encounter, under
conditions otherwise equal, with that of Europeans, even though there were
certain things that they might learn of the Europeans, especially the use
of iron.[76] Furthermore, the Greenlanders' stock of cattle, goats and
sheep had, as we have seen (p. 97), greatly declined owing to the long
severance from Europe, and for this reason also they were obliged to adopt
more of the Eskimo way of life. But then their places of residence within
the fjords, far from the sealing-grounds, were no longer advantageous, and
by degrees they entirely adopted the Eskimo's more migratory life along
the outer coast. Then, again, the Eskimo women were probably no less
attractive to the Northerners of that time than they are to those of the
present day, and thus much mixture of blood gradually resulted. The
children came to speak the Eskimo language, and took at once to a wholly
Eskimo way of life, just as at the present day the children of Danes and
Eskimo in Greenland do. As the Norsemen at that time must also have been
very inferior to the Eskimo in numbers, they must by degrees have become
Eskimo both physically and mentally; and when the country was rediscovered
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were only Eskimo there,
while all traces of the Norwegian-Greenland culture seemed to have
disappeared.
[Illustration: Ruins of church at Kakortok in the Eastern Settlement
(after Th. Groth)]
Let us suppose that we could repeat the experiment and plant a number of
European sealers in Baffin Land, for instance, with their women, together
with a greater number of Eskimo, and then cut off all communication with
the civilised world. Can we have any doubt as to the kind of culture we
should find there if we could come back after two hundred years? All the
inhabitants would be Eskimo, and we should find few traces of European
culture.
[Illustration: Salmon-fishing in Vazdal by Ketils-fjord in the Eastern
Settlement (see map, vol. i. p. 265), where the "birch forest" is as high
as 20 ft. From a photograph by Dr. T. N. Krabbe (A. S. Jensen, 1910)]
[Sidenote: Norse traces among the Greenland Eskimo]
It would doubtless seem reasonable to expect that the descendants of the
ancient Norsemen of Greenland and of the Eskimo with whom they became
absorbed should have shown signs in their external appearance of this
descent, when discovered in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but
unfortunately we have no descriptions of them from that time which allow
of any conclusions being drawn on the subject. It is true that Hans Egede
says [1741, p. 66] that the Eskimo of Greenland "have broad faces and
thick lips, are flat-nosed and of a brownish complexion; though some of
them are quite handsome and white"; but nothing definite can be concluded
from this, and in the period after Egede's arrival the natives on the west
coast became so mixed that it is now hopeless to look for any of the
original race. It is, however, remarkable that Graah found in 1829-1831
Eskimo on the east coast of Greenland, many of whom struck him as
resembling Scandinavians in appearance--a fact which he sought to explain
by European sailors having perhaps been wrecked there.
But if it is now difficult to prove in this way the partially Norse
descent of the natives on the southern west coast of Greenland, it is to
be expected that there should be many vestiges in their myths and
fairy-tales which would give evidence of this. And this is precisely what
we find. In an earlier work [1891, pp. 207, ff.; Engl. ed., pp. 248, ff.]
I think I have pointed out numerous features in their tales that bear a
resemblance to the Norse mythical world, and that must have been derived
from thence; and many more might be adduced. The similarities are
sufficiently numerous to bear witness to a quite intimate intellectual
contact, and are in full agreement with what we should expect. But it may
seem strange that their religious ideas did not show more Christian
influence, especially when we see that even so late as 1407 Christianity
was powerful enough in the Eastern Settlement for a man to be burnt for
having seduced another's wife by witchcraft. There are, however, many
features in their conceptions of another world, of which Egede speaks,
which appear to be necessarily of Christian origin; we must suppose, too,
that Christian education was at a very low ebb in Greenland at the close
of the fourteenth century, and soon ceased altogether.
[Sidenote: Norse words in the Eskimo language]
Only a few words in the language of the Greenland Eskimo on the southern
west coast have been shown to be of Norse origin. Hans Egede himself
pointed out the following: "kona" (== wife, Old Norse kona), "sava" or
"savak" (== sheep, O.N. sauðr, gen. sauða), "nisa" or "nisak" (==
porpoise, O.N. hnísa), "kuanek" (== angelica, O.N. hvǫnn, plur. hvannir).
Some of these words recur in Labrador Eskimo, but may have been introduced
by the Moravian missionaries from Greenland. We may also mention the name
the Eskimo of southern Greenland apply to themselves, "karālek" or
"kalālek," which may come from the word Skræling (which in Eskimo would
become "sakalālek"). This, as the Eskimo told Egede, was the name the
ancient Norsemen had called them by; otherwise the Eskimo call themselves
"inuit" (== human beings); and curiously enough "kalālek" is not used by
the Eskimo of northern Greenland; on the other hand, it is known to the
Labrador Eskimo, but may have been brought by the missionaries, although
the latter asserted that it was known when they came. It is perhaps of
more importance that, according to H. Rink, a similar word ("kallaluik,"
"katlalik" or "kallaaluch," for chief or shaman) occurs in the dialects of
Alaska.
[Sidenote: Complaints of apostasy in notices of Greenland]
Through all the notices of Greenland and its condition, especially those
from religious sources, there runs after the fourteenth century a cry of
apostasy, which is ominous of this mixture of the Norsemen with the
Skrælings: we see it in the doubtful statement from 1342 about their
conversion to "the people of America"; a little later, according to Ivar
Bárdsson's account (see p. 108), the heathen Skrælings were predominant in
the Western Settlement; furthermore, the trading ship was fitted out in
1355 to prevent the "falling away" of Christianity [Grönl. hist. Mind.,
iii. p. 122]; Björn Einarsson's account (see below, p. 112) concludes with
the statement that when he was there (1386) "the bishop of Gardar was
lately dead, and an old priest ... performed all the episcopal
ordinations" [Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 438]; after that time no bishop
came to Greenland; and finally the papal letter of 1492-93 describes the
Greenlanders as a people abandoned by bishop and priest, for which reason
most of them had fallen from the Christian faith, although they still
preserved a memory of the Christian church service (see later).[77] This
may all point in the same direction: that the Norsemen in Greenland
became more and more absorbed by the Eskimo.
[Sidenote: War of extermination improbable]
Of course there may have been occasional hostile encounters between the
Eskimo and Norsemen in Greenland, especially as the latter, as pointed out
in the last chapter, must frequently have acted with a heavy hand when
they had the power. But that the Eskimo should have carried on a regular
war of extermination, which resulted in the complete destruction first of
the Western and then of the Eastern Settlement, as has been generally
assumed until quite recently--this is incredible to any one who knows the
Eskimo and considers what their conditions of life were. Where should they
have developed this warlike propensity which was afterwards foreign to
them, and where should they have had training in the art of war? This idea
of the destruction of the settlements by hostilities is the result mainly
of three statements about Greenland, of which one is very improbable and
on many points impossible, another deals possibly with an actual attack,
and the third is demonstrably false. We must here examine these notices a
little more closely.
[Sidenote: Ivar Bárdsson on the Western Settlement]
In 1341 Bishop Hákon of Bergen sent a priest, Ivar Bárdsson, to Greenland.
He was for a number of years steward of the bishop's residence at Gardar,
and is said also to have visited the Western Settlement. We do not know
for certain how long he was in Greenland, but in 1364 he again appears in
Norway [cf. G. Storm, 1887, p. 74]. There exists in Danish a description
of the fjords, more especially of the Eastern Settlement, which, according
to its own words, must to a great extent be derived from oral
communications of this Ivar (see below). These must originally have been
taken down by another Norwegian, in Norwegian, and were thence translated
into Danish [cf. F. Jónsson, 1899, p. 279]. There is thus a double
possibility that the third-hand version we possess may contain many errors
and misconceptions, of which, in fact, it bears evident marks. After
speaking of the fjords in the Eastern Settlement, it says of the Western
Settlement and of the journey thither:[78]
"Item from the Eastern Settlement to the Western is a dozen
sea-leagues and all is uninhabited, and there in the Western
Settlement stands a great church which is called Stensness Church;
this church was for a time a cathedral and the see of a bishop.[79]
Now the Skrælings possess the whole Western Settlement; there are
indeed horses, goats, cattle and sheep, all wild, and no people either
Christian or heathen.
"Item all this that is said above was told us by Iffuer bort [or
Bardsen], a Greenlander, who was steward of the bishop's residence at
Gardum in Greenland for many years, that he had seen all this and he
was one of those who were chosen by the 'lagmand' to go to the Western
Settlement against the Skrælings to expel the Skrælings from the
Western Settlement, and when they came there they found no man, either
Christian or heathen, but some wild cattle and sheep, and ate of the
wild cattle, and took as much as the ships could carry and sailed with
it home [i.e., to the Eastern Settlement], and the said Iffuer was
among them.
"Item there lies in the north, farther than the Western Settlement, a
great mountain which is called 'Hemelrachs felld' [or 'Himinraðz
fjall,' cf. vol. i. p. 302], and farther than to this mountain must no
man sail, if he would preserve his life from the many whirlpools which
there lie round the whole sea."
[Illustration: From an Icelandic MS. of the fourteenth century]
Strangely enough no author has expressed a doubt of the credibility of
this description, although as usually interpreted it contains an
impossibility, which must strike any one on a closer examination. It is
still commonly interpreted as though Ivar Bárdsson had found the whole
Western Settlement destroyed by Eskimo.[80] But if this was so, how could
he have found there wild cattle, sheep, horses and goats? The whole
Western Settlement must then have been destroyed the summer that he was
there; for the wild cattle could not possibly have supported themselves
through the winter in Greenland; evidently the author, who was
unacquainted with the conditions in Greenland, did not think of this.
Besides, can any one who knows the Eskimo imagine that they slaughtered
the men, but not the cattle? This represented food to them, and that is
what they would first have turned their attention to. It is not stated
which fjord of the Western Settlement it was that Ivar visited; but in any
case it is hardly to be supposed that it was all the fjords, which thus
would all have been destroyed at the same time. The conclusion that Ivar
found the whole Western Settlement laid waste is therefore in any case
unfounded; it can at the most have been one fjord, or perhaps only one
homestead (?). If there should really be some historical foundation for
the description of Ivar Bárdsson's voyage, then it may perhaps be
interpreted in an altogether different way. The people of the Western
Settlement, where the conditions for keeping cattle were far less
favourable than farther south in the Eastern Settlement, undoubtedly
became earlier absorbed among the Eskimo and went over to their mode of
living. This may also be what is alluded to in the perhaps approximately
contemporary statement of 1342, already quoted (p. 101), which says that
the Greenlanders "turned to the people of America." It is possible that it
was just this same state of things that was the cause of Ivar's being sent
to expel the Skrælings from the Western Settlement. When he arrived in the
summer at the fjord which he possibly visited, the people may therefore,
in Eskimo fashion, have been absent on sealing expeditions somewhere out
on the sea-coast and living in tents, while the cattle were turned out at
pasture round the homesteads.[81] This would explain how they came to be
found alive. The men of the Eastern Settlement then, with or against their
better conscience, stole and carried off the property of the half-Eskimo
men of the Western Settlement during their absence, and when the latter
returned they found their homesteads plundered, not by Eskimo but by
Greenlanders. But it is perhaps very questionable whether the whole
account of this voyage is particularly historical. The statement about the
whirlpools, for one thing, is mythical, pointing to an idea that this was
near the end of the earth, and in the description immediately following
like and unlike are mixed together in a way that is calculated to arouse
doubt. We read thus:
"Item in Greenland there are silver-mines [which are not found there],
white bears having red spots on the head [sic!].... Item in Greenland
great tempests never come. Item snow falls much in Greenland, it is
not so cold there as in Iceland and Norway, there grows on high
mountains and down below fruit as large as some apples and good to
eat, the best wheat that can be grows there."[82]
As will be seen, one absurdity succeeds another. It may be objected that
as it is not stated that this last paragraph is due to Ivar the
Greenlander, it may have been added later; but it contains an admixture of
statements that must come from Greenland--e.g., about the white bears,
whales' tusks (i.e., of walrus or narwhale), walrus hides, soapstone
(steatite), of which they make pots, and large vessels; it is also stated
that "there are many reindeer," and it seems probable that it is all
derived from the same untrustworthy source.
To what has here been said some will object that, even if this description
ascribed to Ivar Bárdsson bears evident marks of being inexact, it shows
at any rate that in Norway, when it was taken down, the view prevailed
that the Western Settlement had been destroyed by an attack of the
Skrælings. But nothing of the kind is really stated in the account (cf.
above, p. 108, note 3); and the possibly contemporary statement (of 1342
?) which has already been given (p. 100) shows that in Iceland, at any
rate in the seventeenth century, the contrary view prevailed, unless
indeed we are to explain this statement as having arisen through a
misunderstanding of Lyschander.
[Sidenote: Eskimo attack in 1379]
Under the year 1379 the so-called "Gottskalks Annáll" (of the second half
of the sixteenth century) has a statement which cannot be regarded as
certain, as it is not found in the other Icelandic annals, but which may
have been taken from older sources. It reads [G. Storm's edition of
Islandske Annaler, 1888, p. 364]:
"The Skrælings harried the Greenlanders and killed of them eighteen
men and took two boys and made slaves of them."
[Sidenote: Björn Jorsalafarer's account, 1385-87]
It is possible that this may have some historical foundation, and in that
case it doubtless refers to some collision or attack, perhaps at sea, in
which the Eskimo were superior and the Greenlanders were defeated, which
latter circumstance is the reason of our hearing something about it; in
the contrary case it would not have been reported. That the Eskimo took
two boys is conceivable if they were quite young, so that they could be
trained for sealing; they would thus provide an increase of the capital of
the community. It is not unlikely that rumours of some such collisions as
this may have contributed to form the ideas prevalent in Norway as to the
formidable character of the Skrælings,[83] while at the same time there
existed ideas of their flying from Europeans, which appear in the reports
of the Pygmies (cf. the letter to the Pope, about 1450, and Walkendorf,
above, p. 86). Whether the encounter referred to took place in the Western
or in the Eastern Settlement (or perhaps in Nordrsetur ?) we do not know.
If we are to place any reliance on Ivar Bárdsson's description, we must
suppose that the Western Settlement and its fate were little known at that
time. But that friendly relations between the Greenlanders and the Eskimo
may have prevailed also in the Eastern Settlement later than this seems to
result from the account of the widely travelled Icelander Björn Einarsson
Jorsalafarer's stay in Greenland from 1385 to 1387. On a voyage to Iceland
in 1385 he was in distress, and was driven out of his course to the
Eastern Settlement with four ships, which all arrived safe and well in
Iceland in 1387.[84] It seems that there was a difficulty in feeding all
these crews, but Björn is said to have had the district of Eric's fjord
handed over to him while he was there (?), and received as a contribution
130 fore-quarters of sheep (?). There is also related a fable that on his
coming there and going down to the sea to look for seals he happened to
witness a combat between a polar bear and a walrus, "who always fight when
they meet,[85] and he afterwards killed them both."
"Then Björn the franklin found maintenance for his people through one
of the largest rorquals being driven ashore, with a marked harpoon
belonging to Olaf of Isafjord in Iceland, and finally it was also of
importance that he came to the assistance of two trolls [i.e.,
Eskimo], a young brother and sister, on a tidal skerry [i.e., one that
was under water at high tide]. They swore fidelity to him, and from
that time he never was short of food; for they were skilled in all
kinds of hunting, whatever he wished or needed. What the troll girl
liked best was when Solveig, the mistress of the house, allowed her to
carry and play with her boy who had lately been born. She also wanted
to have a linen hood like the mistress, but made it for herself of
whale's guts. They killed themselves, and threw themselves into the
sea from the cliffs after the ships, when they were not allowed to
sail with the franklin Björn, their beloved master, to Iceland."
The description of Björn Einarsson's voyage is full of extravagances and
anything but trustworthy; but his stay in Greenland with the four ships is
certainly historical; and the description of the two young Eskimo has many
features so typical of the Eskimo--such as the girl's fondness for
children, her making a hood of whale's guts, and their superior skill in
sealing--that they show without doubt that at that time there was
intercourse with the Eskimo in the Eastern Settlement.
From an existing royal document of 1389 it appears that, when Björn and
his companions came from Iceland to Bergen in 1388, they were prosecuted
for illegal trading with Greenland, which was a royal monopoly; but they
were acquitted, since they had been driven there in great distress and
were obliged to trade in order to obtain food [Grönl. hist. Mind., iii.
pp. 139, f.].
[Sidenote: Papal letter of 1448 on an Eskimo attack]
A document to which much weight has been attached is a papal letter which
has been preserved, from Nicholas V. in 1448 to the two bishops of
Iceland. It is there said of Greenland, amongst other things [Grönl. hist.
Mind., iii. p. 170]:
"From the neighbouring coasts of the heathens the barbarians came
thirty years ago with a fleet, attacked the people living there [in
Greenland] with a cruel assault, and so destroyed the land of their
fathers and the sacred edifices with fire and sword that only nine
parish churches were left in the whole island [Greenland], and these
are said to be the most remote, which they could not reach on account
of the steep mountains. They carried the miserable inhabitants of both
sexes as prisoners to their own country, especially those whom they
regarded as strong and capable of bearing constant burdens of slavery,
as was fitting for their tyranny. But since, as the same complaint
adds,[86] in the course of time most of them have returned from the
said imprisonment to their own homes, and have here and there repaired
the ruins of their dwellings, they long to establish and extend divine
service again, as far as possible...." Then follows a lengthy
discourse on their religious needs, and what might be done to relieve
them, without costing the rich Papacy anything.
As the barbarians here must undoubtedly mean the Eskimo, it has been
regarded as a historical fact that the latter about 1418 made a
devastating attack on the Eastern Settlement, and this document has thus
lent weighty support to the general opinion that the Greenland settlements
perished as the result of an Eskimo war of extermination. But the letter
itself shows such obvious ignorance of conditions in Greenland, especially
with regard to the Eskimo, that there must be some doubt about the
complaint on which it is based. To begin with, it is in itself unlikely
that the peaceful and unwarlike Eskimo, who can have had no practice in
warfare, since they had previously had no one to fight with, except
walruses and bears, should have come with a "fleet" and made an organised
attack in large masses, and destroyed people and houses and churches in
the Eastern Settlement. Even if they might have been provoked to
resistance or even revenge by ill-usage on the part of the Greenlanders,
or perhaps have coveted their iron implements, it is an impossibility that
they should have organised themselves for a campaign. But it is added that
they carried off the inhabitants of both sexes to use them as slaves; for
what work?--in sealing they were themselves superior, in preparing skins
and food their women were superior; and other work they had none. To a
Greenland Eskimo it would be an utterly absurd idea to feed unnecessary
slaves, and it betrays itself as of wholly European origin. The statement
that after the incursion only nine parish churches were left also betrays
ignorance; as pointed out by Storm, there were never more than twelve,
even in the flourishing period of the Settlement, and by about 1418 there
were certainly not nine in all. Furthermore, the letter is not addressed
to the two bishops really officiating in Iceland, but to the two
impostors, the German Marcellus and his confederate Mathæus, who by means
of false representations had induced Pope Nicholas V. to consecrate them
bishops of Iceland [cf. G. Storm, 1892, p. 399]. The probability is that
the two impostors themselves composed the complaint from Greenland which
was the cause of the papal letter, and which thus did not reach the Pope
until thirty years after the alleged incursion; their object must have
been to obtain further advantages. The papal document of 1448 must
therefore be entirely discarded as historical evidence so far as its
statements about Greenland are concerned.
[Sidenote: Eskimo legends of fighting with Norsemen]
Consequently the only possibly historical statement left to us, to prove
that the Eskimo took the offensive, is that of their "harrying" in 1379;
but from this we can doubtless only conclude that at the most there was a
collision between Eskimo and Greenlanders. It has also been adduced that
the Eskimo of Greenland have a few legends of fighting with the ancient
Norsemen, and one which tells how the last of the Norsemen was slain. It
must, however, be remembered that these legends were taken down in the
last century, when the Eskimo had again been in contact with Europeans for
several hundred years, and when Norwegians and Danes had been living in
the country for over a hundred years. Some of the legends certainly refer
to recent collisions with Europeans, and it is not easy to say what value
can be attached to the others as evidence of an extermination of the last
Norsemen. It is also to be remarked that the Norsemen, or Long-Beards, are
not spoken of with ill-will in these legends, but rather with sympathy,
which is difficult to understand if there had been such hatred as would
account for a war of extermination. Add to this that the particular
encounter which led to the last Long-Beard being pursued and slain arose,
according to the tale, quite accidentally, which is difficult to imagine
if it was the conclusion of a lengthy war of extermination, in which
homestead after homestead and district after district had been harried and
laid waste. The legends of the Eskimo cannot therefore be cited as
evidence of the probability of any such war.
[Sidenote: Unwarlike disposition of the Eskimo]
It has been said that even if such warlike proceedings would be entirely
incompatible with the present nature, disposition and way of thinking of
the Greenland Eskimo, it may formerly have been otherwise. But in any
case no long time can have elapsed between the alleged final overthrow of
the Eastern Settlement, perhaps about 1500, and the rediscovery of
Greenland in the sixteenth century. It is not likely that the Eskimo
should have so completely changed their nature in the few intervening
years; those whom the discoverers then found seem, from the accounts, to
have strikingly resembled those we find later. And if one reads Hans
Egede's description of the Eskimo among whom he lived and worked, it
appears absolutely impossible that the same people two hundred years
earlier should have waged a cruel war of extermination against the last of
the Norsemen.
There is, it is true, a possibility, as Dr. Björnbo has pointed out to me,
that the mixture of race which gradually took place between Eskimo and
Norsemen may for a time have produced a mixed type, which possessed a more
quarrelsome disposition than the pure Eskimo, and may have inherited the
not very peaceful habits of the Norsemen, and that in this way, for
instance, a possible attack in 1379 may be explained. But this can only
have been the case at the beginning of the period of intermixture, and the
type must have changed again in proportion as the Eskimo element in race
and culture became preponderant.[87]
[Sidenote: No tradition of a war of extermination can be proved]
The allusion to the Pygmies of Greenland in the letter to Nicholas V.,
quoted above (p. 86), gives us the Eskimo as we are accustomed to see
them; and the description of these small men, a cubit high, who fly in a
body at the sight of strangers, gives a surer and truer picture of the
Skrælings than when they are represented as warlike and dangerous
barbarians. The statements about the Pygmies in Claudius Clavus also
enable us to see how the Norsemen sometimes treated the Eskimo, when they
caught them
"at sea in a hide-boat, which now hangs in the cathedral at Trondhjem;
there is also a long boat of hides [i.e., a women's boat] which was
also once taken with such Pygmies in it."
But that these little Pygmies, a cubit high, were regarded as formidable
warriors, engaged in exterminating the Norsemen, is difficult to
believe,[88] even though Michel Beheim attributes warlike qualities to
them (cf. p. 85). Walkendorf, who had so carefully collected all
traditions about Greenland, describes (circa 1520) the Skrælings as an
"unwarlike" and harmless people (see above, p. 86). It is impossible to
reconcile this with a tradition of a war of extermination.
There are therefore good grounds for supposing that Arne Magnussen was
approximately correct when he said in 1691 [Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. p.
138]:
"It is probable that owing to the daily increase of the ice and its
drifting down from the Pole, it thus befell Greenland, and the
Christian inhabitants either died of hunger or were constrained to
practise the same Vitæ genus as the savages, and thus degenerated into
their nature."
[Sidenote: Last known voyage to the Eastern Settlement]
In the year 1406 the Icelanders Thorstein Helmingsson, Snorre Thorvason
and Thorgrim Solvason, in one ship, were driven out of their course to
Greenland. "They sailed out from Norway, and were making for Iceland. They
stayed there [in Greenland] four winters" [cf. Islandske Annaler, ed.
Storm, 1888, p. 288]. While they were there, in the following year [1407]
"a man named Kolgrim was burnt in Greenland for that he lay with
Thorgrim Solvason's wife, who was the daughter of a 'lagmand' of high
standing in Iceland. This man got her consent by black art; he was
therefore burnt according to sentence; nor was the woman ever after
in her right mind, and died a little later."
In 1408 one of the Icelanders married in Greenland, which is of interest
from the fact that several documents bearing witness to the marriage are
extant. In 1410 "Thorstein Helmingsson and Thorgrim Solvason and Snorre
Thorvason and the rest of their crew sailed to Norway." Whether this was
in their own ship we do not know; but as they sailed to Norway and not to
Iceland it is doubtless most probable that their ship was destroyed and
that they had to wait these four years for a passage to Norway. In
1411[89] a small vessel was wrecked on the coast of Iceland; on board her
came Snorre Thorvason from Norway. His wife, Gudrun, had during his
absence married another man in 1410. She "now rode to meet him. He
received her kindly." "Snorre took his wife to him again, but they only
lived a little while together before he died, and she then married Gisle
[the other man] again."
This is the last certain information we have of any voyage to the ancient
settlements of Greenland. After that time all notices cease. As Holberg
says [Danm. Hist., i. 531], after the time of Queen Margaret the
succeeding kings had so much to do that they had no time to think of old
Greenland.[90]
[Sidenote: Trade with Norway's tributary countries]
In 1431 King Eric of Pomerania complained to the English king, Henry VI.,
of the illegal trading which the English had carried on for the previous
twenty years (that is, since 1411) with "Norway's Lands and Islands":
Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes, Shetland, the Orkneys, Helgeland and
Finmark; and of the acts of violence and piratical incursions, with fire
and rapine, that they had committed in this period, by which they had
carried off many ships laden with fish and other goods, and many people
had perished.[91] As early as 1413 King Eric's ambassador to the English
king, Henry V., had made a strong protest against all foreign and
unprivileged trade with these countries. On Christmas Eve, 1432, a treaty
was signed between the two kings, whereby Henry VI. engaged himself to
make good all the damage the English had caused to King Eric's subjects in
the said countries, and all the people who during those twenty years had
been violently carried off were, by the direction of the English king,
wherever they might be found in his dominions, to receive payment for
their services and to return freely to their native places. Further, the
old prohibition of trading with the Norwegian tributary lands was renewed.
The same prohibition was renewed and enforced on the English side by Henry
VI. in 1444, and by a new treaty between him and Christiern I., concluded
at Copenhagen, July 17, 1449; but this was only to remain in force till
Michaelmas 1451. After that time the English merchants, some of whom no
doubt were Norwegians established at Bristol, seem to have seized upon
nearly the whole of the trade with Iceland, and often conducted themselves
with violence there. But in 1490 this trade was made free on certain
conditions.
These negotiations give us an insight into the state of things in Northern
waters at that time. At the same time there were difficulties with the
Hanseatic League, which tried to seize upon all trade.
Among these so-called Norwegian tributary countries was Greenland, which
is mentioned with the others in the complaint of 1431; but whether this
means that the English extended their trading voyages, which frequently
became piratical expeditions, so far, we do not know; in any case it is
not impossible, although of course the voyage to Iceland with its rich
fisheries was much more important. We know that this was carried on from
Bristol in particular, where, as has been said, many Norwegians were
established.
[Sidenote: Possibility of voyages to Greenland in the 15th century (?)]
The statements about Greenland contained in the papal letter of 1448 were,
as we have seen, false. Perhaps not very much more weight is to be
attached to the story, in Peyrere's "Relation du Groënland" (Paris, 1647),
of Oluf Worm of Copenhagen having found in an old Danish MS. a statement
that about 1484 there were more than forty experienced men living at
Bergen, who were in the habit of sailing to Greenland every year and
bringing home valuable goods; but as they would not sell their wares to
the Hanse merchants, the latter revenged themselves by inviting them to a
supper and killing them all at night. This then was said to be the end of
the Greenland voyage, which had to cease thenceforward, because no one
knew the course any more [cf. Grönl hist. Mind., iii. pp. 471, f.]. The
story as given here is in many respects improbable; but even if the forty
or more men and the annual voyage are exaggerations, there are other
indications that about that time there may have been some sort of
communication with Greenland or the countries to the west of it, as will
be mentioned later. The royal monopoly of the Iceland trade was no longer
in force, and the same may have applied to Greenland. It is then
conceivable that merchants may have gone there; and if their trading
prospered they had every reason to keep it as secret as possible, lest
others should interfere with their livelihood. This would explain why such
voyages are not mentioned by historical authorities. Just then, too, was
an uneasy time, with a sort of war of privateers between England and
Denmark-Norway, which was not concluded until the provisional peace of
1490; there were thus many pirates and privateers in Northern waters, who
may well have extended their activity upon occasion to the remote and
unprotected Greenland, where they could plunder with even greater
impunity than in Iceland, and perhaps they increased the ruin of the
settlements there.
[Sidenote: Papal letter on Greenland, 1492]
Of great interest is a letter from Pope Alexander VI.[92] of the first
year of his papacy, 1492-1493, which was written in consequence of a
Benedictine monk named Mathias having applied to the Pope to be appointed
bishop of Greenland, and declared himself willing to go there personally
as a missionary to convert the apostates. The letter runs:
"As we are informed, the church at Gade [i.e., Gardar] lies at the
world's end in the land of Greenland, where the people, for want of
bread, wine and oil, live on dried fish and milk; and therefore, as
well as by reason of the extreme rarity of the voyages that have taken
place to the said land, for which the severe freezing of the waters is
alleged as the cause, it is believed that for eighty years no ship has
landed there; and if such voyages should take place, it is thought
that in any case it could only be in the month of August, when the
same ice is dissolved; and for this reason it is said that for eighty
years or thereabouts no bishop or priest has resided at that church.
Therefore, and because there are no Catholic priests, it has befallen
that most of the parishioners, who formerly were Catholics, have (oh,
how sorrowful!) renounced the holy sacrament of baptism received from
them; and that the inhabitants of that land have nothing else to
remind them of the Christian religion than a corporale [altar-cloth]
which is exhibited once a year, and whereon the body of Christ was
consecrated a hundred years ago by the last priest who was there." For
this reason, "to provide them with a fitting shepherd," Pope
Alexander's predecessor, Innocent VIII., had appointed the Benedictine
monk Mathias bishop of Gade [Gardar], and he "with much godly zeal
made ready to bring the minds of the infidels and apostates back to
the way of eternal salvation and to root out such errors," etc. Then
follow exhortations to the Curia, the chancellors, and all the
religious scriveners under pain of excommunication to let the said
Mathias, on account of his poverty, escape all expenses and
perquisites connected with the appointment and correspondence, etc.
The statements in the letter agree remarkably well with what we gather
from other historical sources. In 1410--that is, eighty-two years before
the date of the letter--the last ship of which we have any notice arrived
in Norway from Greenland (see above, p. 118). This agrees with the
statement in the letter that no ship had been there for eighty years. In
1377 the last officiating bishop of Gardar died, and six years later the
news reached Norway, that is, 109 years before the date of the letter.
This agrees with what is said about the altar-cloth being used a hundred
years before by the last priest ("ultimo sacerdote," perhaps meaning here
bishop ?) at the administration of the sacrament. The assertion that it
was not until August that Greenland became free of ice and that voyages
could be made thither also shows a certain local knowledge; for it was not
till late in the summer, usually August, that "Knarren" was accustomed to
sail from Bergen to Greenland.
[Illustration: A portion of Gourmont's map of 1548, with the north-west
coast of Iceland and the rocky island of Hvitserk]
Whether news had recently arrived from Greenland at the time the letter
was written does not appear from the words of the letter, and cannot, in
my opinion, be inferred therefrom, though Storm [1892, p. 401] thought it
could. The only thing which might point to this is the story of the
altar-cloth being exhibited once a year; but this, of course, may be a
tradition which goes back to the last ship, eighty years before.
[Sidenote: Pining's possible voyages to Greenland]
Meanwhile we meet with obscure information in other quarters about a
possible communication with Greenland at that time. In a map of Iceland,
printed in Paris in 1548 by Hieronymus Gourmont,[93] a rocky island is
marked to the north-west of Iceland, with a compass-card and a Latin
inscription. This, as A. A. Björnbo has pointed out,[94] is of interest;
it reads in translation:
"The lofty mountain called Witsarc, on the summit of which a sea-mark
was set up by the two pirates (piratis), Pinnigt and Pothorst, to warn
seamen against Greenland."
[Illustration: The rock Hvitserk, and a fight with a Greenland Pygmy
(Olaus Magnus, 1557)]
The map is a modified copy of Olaus Magnus's well-known large chart of
1539, on which the island with the compass-card is found, but not the
inscription.
It is possibly a fuller version or adaptation of the substance of this
inscription, or of the source from which it is taken, that is met with
again in Olaus Magnus's work on the Northern peoples, of 1555, where he
says of "the lofty mountain 'Huitsark,' which lies in the middle of the
sea between Iceland and Greenland":
"Upon it lived about the year of Our Lord 1494 two notorious pirates
(piratæ), Pining and Pothorst, with their accomplices, as though in
defiance and contempt of all kingdoms and their forces, since, by the
strict orders of the Northern kings, they had been excluded from all
human society and declared outlaws for their exceedingly violent
robberies and many cruel deeds against all sailors they could lay
hands on, whether near or far."... "Upon the top of this very high
rock the said Pining and Pothorst have constructed a compass out of a
considerable circular space, with rings and lines formed of lead;
thereby it was made more convenient for them, when they were bent on
piracy, as they thus were informed in what direction they ought to put
to sea to seek considerable plunder."
It may be the expression "piratæ," which might be used both of an ordinary
pirate and of a privateer or freebooter, which misled Olaus Magnus into
constructing this wonderful story. The mere fact that, both in his map of
1539 and in his work of 1555, he makes Hvitserk, which of course was in
Greenland, into a rocky island out at sea between Greenland and Iceland,
where no island is to be found, is enough to shake one's belief in the
trustworthiness of this strange report. His incomprehensible story of the
compass constructed there does not make things any better. G. Storm [1886,
p. 395] thought it might have come about in this way: that Olaus Magnus,
who was no great sailor or geographer, read on a chart a note about
Pining's voyage to Greenland, and saw in its proximity the name Hvitserk
and a compass-card in the middle of the sea; and then, without
understanding its real meaning, he made it an island and gave it his own
explanation. Björnbo and Petersen [1909, pp. 250, 251] have, it is true,
pointed out that something of the same sort is told of the North Cape by
Sivert Grubbe, who accompanied Christian IV. on his voyage to Finmark, and
who writes in his journal (in Latin) on May 12, 1599: "We sailed past the
North Cape. On the top of this mountain is a compass cut into the rock."
But as they "sailed past," Grubbe cannot have been up and seen this
compass; it may therefore be supposed that a similar error is at the base
of this improbable statement; it is difficult to see what value for
mariners such a compass could have. But notwithstanding Olaus Magnus's
fantastic story, Pining and Pothorst may really have been in Greenland.
The former must be the Norwegian nobleman Didrik Pining, who together with
Pothorst ("Pytchehorsius") is said to have distinguished himself during
the later years of Christiern I., "not less as capable seamen than as
matchless freebooters" (piratæ). He was much employed by Christiern I. and
King Hans against the English and sometimes against the Hanseatic League,
and is mentioned by several historical authorities.[95] He seems also to
have extended his activity upon occasion to the Spaniards, Portuguese and
Dutch, for about 1484 he captured, off the English coast or off Brittany
and in the Spanish Sea, three Spanish or Portuguese ships, and brought
them to the king at Copenhagen. In a treaty which was concluded in 1490
between King Hans and the Dutch it is expressly stipulated that Didrik
Pinning and a certain Busch were to be excluded from the peace. Didrik
Pining is spoken of as lord over Iceland, or perhaps over the eastern and
southern part, in 1478; but on the death of Christiern I. in 1481, another
was appointed as "hirdstjore" (or stadtholder), and it is stated in the
letter of appointment, issued by the council at Bergen in 1481, that
Pining had "gone out of Iceland"; but a few years later he is again
mentioned as hirdstjore there. When in 1487 King Hans took possession of
Gotland, Pining accompanied him thither, doubtless as commander of the
Danish-Norwegian squadron; he is called "Skipper Pining," which
corresponds to commodore or admiral in our time (cf. Christiern I.'s
"Skipper Clemens"). In July 1489 Didrik Pining was among the Norwegian
noblemen who paid homage at Copenhagen to the king's son, Christiern
(II.) as heir to the kingdom of Norway; and in August and September 1490
he took part in the settlement of a suit concerning a large inheritance at
Bergen; but in two Icelandic laws or edicts of that time, 1489 and 1490,
the so-called "Pining's Laws," he is described as "'hirdstjore' over the
whole of Iceland," and a later chronicler speaks of him as one of the most
famous men in Iceland, and he says that "he was in many ways a serviceable
man and put many things right that were wrong." It must be the same Didrik
Pining who was appointed in 1490 governor of Vardöhus, and it may be
supposed that he was commander-in-chief on sea and land in northern
waters.
We hear of Pining, and his associate Pothorst, in an old (Icelandic ?)
report which, together with Ivar Bárdsson's description of Greenland, was
found in an old book of accounts in the Faroes, and which in an English
translation was included in "Purchas his Pilgrimes" (London, 1625, vol.
iii.), where we read:
"Item, Punnus [corruption of Pinning] and Potharse, have inhabited
Island certayne yeeres, and sometimes have gone to Sea, and have had
their trade in Groneland. Also Punnus did give the Islanders their
Lawes, and caused them to bee written. Which Lawes doe continue to
this day in Island, and are called by name Punnus Lawes."
[Sidenote: A new document on Pining]
As this last statement agrees with the two "Pining's Laws" mentioned
above, there may also be some truth in the voyages to Greenland. An
unexpected confirmation of this recently came to light in the discovery of
a document by Louis Bobé [1909] at Copenhagen; it is a letter, dated March
3, 1551, from Burgomaster Carsten Grip, of Kiel, to King Christiern III.
Grip was, as we are told in the letter, the king's commissioner for the
purchase of books, paintings, and the like. He tells the king that he has
not found any valuable books or suitable pictures, but sends him two maps
of the world,
"from which your majesty may see that your majesty's land of
Greenland extends on both maps towards the new world and the islands
which the Portuguese and Spaniards have discovered, so that these
countries may be reached overland from Greenland. Likewise that they
may be reached overland from Lampeland [i.e., Lapland], from the
castle of Vardöhus, etc.[96] This year there is also published at
Paris in France a map of your majesty's land of Iceland and of the
wonders there to be seen and heard of; it is there remarked that
Iceland is twice as large as Sicily, and that the two skippers
['sceppere,' i.e., commodores or admirals] Pyningk and Poidthorsth,
who were sent out by your majesty's royal grandfather, King Christiern
the First, at the request of his majesty of Portugal, with certain
ships to explore new countries and islands in the north, have raised
on the rock Wydthszerck [Hvitserk], lying off Greenland and towards
Sniefeldsiekel in Iceland on the sea, a great sea-mark on account of
the Greenland pirates, who with many small ships without keels
('szunder bodem') fall in large numbers upon other ships," etc.
It seems, as Dr. Björnbo has suggested,[97] that the Paris map here spoken
of may be Gourmont's of 1548, mentioned above. But Grip's letter contains
information about the despatch of the expedition and about the Eskimo
kayaks, which cannot be taken from the inscription attached to Hvitserk on
that map. The statement about the Eskimo (the Greenland pirates) recalls
what Ziegler says in his work "Scondia" (1532) of the inhabitants of
Greenland, that "they use light boats of hide, safe in tossing on the sea
and among rocks; and thus propelling themselves they fall upon other
ships" [Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 499]. It also has some resemblance to
what Olaus Magnus says in his later work of 1555 of the Greenland
"pirates, who employ hide-boats and an unfair mode of seamanship, since
they do not attack the upper parts of merchant ships, but seek to destroy
them by boring through the hull from outside, down by the keel," etc.
These statements may be derived from mythical accounts of the Greenland
Eskimo, which have come down by some channel we do not know of. Something
of the sort may have appeared on some now lost map, from which Grip may
have taken it; but his statement as to the two skippers having been sent
out by Christiern I. shows that in any case there was in his day a
tradition of the voyage of Pining and Pothorst. We must therefore assume
that they were despatched on a voyage of discovery by Christiern I. (some
time before 1481, when he died), probably at the request of the well-known
King Alfonso V. of Portugal (1438-1481). As Hvitserk must be on the coast
of Greenland, they seem, in agreement with the other sober statement in
Purchas, to have really reached Greenland, perhaps more than once, and to
have traded by barter with the natives, which may have ended, as it
frequently did later, in skirmishes brought about by the encroachments of
the Europeans. This last possibility would explain Grip's statement about
the Greenland pirates attacking in many small ships without keels, as also
the mythical statements of Ziegler and Olaus Magnus. Nor is it impossible
that Pining may have set up some sea-mark or other there. All this sounds
more probable than Olaus Magnus's wonderful story. But nevertheless it
does not appear to me that the authorities now known justify us in
altogether rejecting the latter and the date 1494. As there is mention in
1491 of a new "hirdstjore" in Iceland, we must suppose that Pining was
either dead or had left the island; if we compare with this the fact that
Pining was excluded from the peace that King Hans concluded in 1490 with
the Dutch, and thus in a way became an outlaw to the latter, and that in
the same year a provisional peace was made with the king of England, by
which, of course, all privateering against English subjects on the part of
Norwegians and Danes was strictly forbidden, we may possibly perceive a
connection. Pining and Pothorst were not able to break themselves of old
habits, and thus had both the English king and their own, besides the
Dutchmen, against them, and were compelled to fly the country as outlaws.
This would also agree with Olaus Magnus's words, that they were outlawed
by the strict edict of the northern kings ("aquilonarium regum severissimo
edicto"). It may be supposed 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 Eliæ mentions "Pyning" and "Pwthorss."[98]
[Sidenote: Johannes Scolvus's voyage to Greenland]
We have yet to mention certain obscure statements about another Northern
sailor of this time, Johannes Scolvus (Jón Skolv ?).[99] 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.,
navigator] Joan Scoluo, and Englishmen with Sebastian Gaboto."
As, according to Storm's showing [1886, p. 392], Gomara met Olaus 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,[100] and
mentions among others Scolvus. This the historians who have written about
him have not noticed. After stating that Sebastian [should be John]
Cabotte was sent out by King Henry VII. of England in 1496 [should be
1497] to find the passage from the North Sea [i.e., the Atlantic Ocean] to
the South Sea [i.e., the Pacific], and that "one Gaspar Cortesreales, a
pilot of Portingale," had visited these islands on the north coast of
North America in 1500, the document continues:
"But to find oute the passage oute of the North Sea into the Southe we
must sayle to the 60 degree, that is, from 66 unto 68. And this
passage is called the Narowe Sea or Streicte of the three Brethren
[i.e., the three brothers Corte-Real]; in which passage, at no tyme in
the yere, is ise wonte to be found. The cause is the swifte ronnyng
downe of sea into sea. In the north side of this passage, John Scolus,
a pilot of Denmerke, was in anno 1476."
Then follows a story of a Spaniard who in 1541 is said to have been on the
south side of this passage with a troop of soldiers, and to have found
there some ships that had come thither with goods from Cataya (China).
Complete impossibilities, like this last story, are thus blended together
with statements that have a sure historical foundation, like the voyage of
Gaspar Corte-Real. As the statement about Scolus or Scolvus contains
things that are not found in Gomara, it seems to be derived from another
source; the date in particular is remarkable. That Scolus is a pilot from
Denmark, while the pilot Scolvus in Gomara came from Norway, is perhaps
immaterial, as of course Norway and Denmark were under a common king, who
resided in Denmark.
On an English map of 1582 (after Frobisher's voyages), which is attributed
to Michael Lok, there is a country to the north-west of Greenland, upon
which is written: "Jac. Scolvus Groetland." As the name is here written
Jac. Scolvus, it is not likely that it can be derived from the document we
have quoted of 1575. The corresponding country on Mercator's map of 1569
is inscribed: "Groclant, insula cuius incole Suedi sunt origine" (island
whose inhabitants are Swedes by descent). It may seem as if this
inscription also was connected with Scolvus, and we thus get the third
Scandinavian country as his native land; but this word "Suedi" may be
derived from Olaus Magnus, who happens to have often used it in the sense
of Scandinavians--i.e., Swedes and Norwegians.
In 1597 the Dutchman Cornelius Wytfliet in his description of America
("Continens Indica") states that its northern part was first discovered by
"Frislandish" fishermen [i.e., from the imaginary Frisland of the Zeno
map], and subsequently further explored about 1390 during the voyage of
the brothers Zeno (which is fictitious).
"But [he continues] the honour of its second discovery fell to the
Pole Johannes Scoluus (Johannes Scoluus Polonus), who in the year
1476--eighty-six years after its first discovery--sailed beyond
Norway, Greenland, Frisland, penetrated the Northern Strait, under the
very Arctic Circle, and arrived at the country of Labrador and
Estotiland."
Estotiland is another fictitious country on the notorious Zeno map (a
fabrication from several earlier maps). Apart from this introduction of
the Zeno voyage the statement contains nothing that has not already
appeared in Gomara and in the English document of 1575, with the exception
that Scolvus is called a Pole (Polonus), but this, as pointed out by Storm
[1886, p. 399], must be due to a misreading of "Polonus" for
"piloto."[101] As Norway is named first among the countries beyond which
the voyage extended, it may have started from thence in Wytfliet's
authority.[102]
On the L'Ecuy globe, of the sixteenth century, there is written in Latin
between 70° and 80° N. lat. and in long. 320°:[103] "These are the people
to whom the Dane Johannes Scovvus penetrated in the year 1476." The
description of Scolvus as a Dane may indicate the same source as the
English mention of him in 1576.[104]
Finally it may be mentioned that Georg Horn in his work "Ulysses
peregrinans" (Louvain, 1671), after speaking of voyages of the Icelanders
(Thylenses) to "Frisland or Finmark" (sic!), to Iceland, Greenland,
Scotland, and Gotland under "auspiciis Margaretæ Semiramis Dan., Sued.,
Norv.," and then of the voyages of the Zenos in the year 1390, says:
"Joh. Scolnus Polonus discovered under the auspices of Christian I.,
King of the Danes, the Anian-strait and the country Laboratoris in the
year 1476."
The Anian-strait was the mythical strait between Asia and north-western
America, which was talked about and 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 therefore 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.
[Sidenote: Pining, Pothorst and Scolvus on the same voyage]
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 1481; 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 (Jón
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 was connected with that of the pilot or
navigator, in the same way as, for instance, the name of William Barentsz
was associated with the voyages in which he took part, instead of those of
Hemkerck and the other leaders. There seem thus to be sufficiently good
historical documents in support of at least one expedition having reached
Greenland in the latter part of the sixteenth century, possibly sent out
by Christiern I. in 1476, and perhaps there were more. Possibly it was
rumours of this new communication with Greenland that awoke a desire in
the monk Mathias to go there as bishop.
But then we hear no more of it. For a while longer bishops continued to be
appointed to Greenland, a land which was no longer known to any one, and
to these bishops least of all. Thus ends the history of the old Greenland
settlements. Notices of them become rarer and rarer, with long
intermissions, until after this time they cease altogether, and we know no
more of the fate of the old Norsemen there.
"The standing-stone on the mound bears no mark,
and Saga has forgotten what she knew."
[Illustration]