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.
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.”
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.”