Two things are to be remarked about this assertion that he himself had seen these Pygmies (one might suppose in Norway): (1) if he had really seen a captive Eskimo brought to Norway (by whom ?), he could hardly have been ignorant that this remarkable native was from Greenland, and not from a fabulous northern land. And (2), how could he then give their height as no more than a cubit, like the Pygmies of myth? It appears to me that in one’s zeal to defend Clavus, one would thus have to attribute to him two serious falsehoods, instead of a more innocent rhetorical phrase about having seen this, that, and the other.
Clavus’s statement about the Pygmies’ small hide-boats, and the long hide-boat, that hung in Trondhjem cathedral, is, however, of great interest from the fact that this is the first mention in literature of the two forms of Eskimo boat: the kayak and the women’s boat (“umiak”). Perhaps he got this from the same unknown source (in the Vatican ?) in which he found the statement of the latitude of Trondhjem (?). In the fact that the Wild Lapps are mentioned first, and after them the Pygmies, Clavus’s text again bears a great resemblance to the anonymous letter to Pope Nicholas V. (of about 1450). In the northernmost regions (to the north-west of Norway) this letter mentions [cf. Storm, 1899, p. 9]
“the forests of Gronolonde, where there are monsters of human aspect who have hairy limbs, and who are called wild men.”... “And as one goes west towards the mountains of these countries, there dwell Pygmies,” etc. (cf. above, [p. 86]).
Michael Beheim also mentions “Wild lapen,” who live in the forests to the north of Norway, and who carry on a dumb barter of furs with the merchants, like that described by the Arab authors as taking place in the country north of Wîsu (cf. [p. 144]), and he goes on to speak of the Skrælings, three spans high, etc. (cf. above, [p. 85]). Beheim’s statement differs from Clavus’s text, and this again from the letter to Nicholas V., so that one cannot be derived from the other. It is therefore most probable, as suggested already ([p. 86]), that they have all drawn from some older source, and it may be supposed that this was Nicholas of Lynn. We have seen that there are other points in Clavus that lead one’s thoughts in the same direction.
Clavus proceeds:
“The peninsula of the island of Greenland stretches down from land on the north which is inaccessible or unknown on account of ice. Nevertheless, as I have seen, the infidel Karelians daily come to Greenland in great armies (bands of warriors, ‘cum copioso exercitu’), and that without doubt from the other side of the North Pole. Therefore the ocean does not wash the limit of the continent under the Pole [Arctic Circle ?] itself, as all ancient authors have asserted; and therefore the noble English knight, John Mandevil, did not lie when he said that he had sailed from the Indian Seres [i.e., China ?] to an island in Norway.”
If we compare this with the “Rymbegla” tract already mentioned [1780, p. 466], we see that these are much the same ideas as there expressed. We read there
“that it is the report of the same men that the sea is full of eternal ice to the north of us and under the pole star, where the arms of the Outer Ocean meet....”
When it is there stated that
“those shores [under the pole star] hinder the ring of the ocean from coming together [i.e., round the earth]” ... and “that one can go on foot ... from Greenland to Norway” [cf. above, [p. 239]],