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: