“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.
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.”
