Grettir the Outlaw

Next year she lost one of her men-servants in the same way. He vanished, and none knew how or whither he had gone. If he had run away, she would probably have had tidings of him; but she heard none, and his body was also never found.

I have no doubt that she told Grettir about this, and also that she believed that the Stream-churl who lived under Goda-foss had carried off both her husband and the servant. I believe also that, to satisfy her, Grettir undertook to look, and that he actually dived under the fall, and came up and searched between the sheet of falling water and the rock, and found – nothing.

That is the foundation of a wonderful story which has found its way into the saga. It did not satisfy those who told the tale of Grettir that he should have spent the winter at Sandheaps and done nothing – that he should have dived under Goda-foss and found nothing.

So by degrees old nursery tales got mixed up with this incident about Grettir's search for the Stream-churl, and all was worked into a wonderful story, which you shall hear.

On that night on which Grettir had carried Steinvor across the river, he returned to the farm, and lay down in his bed.

When midnight arrived, then a great din was heard outside, and presently the hall door was thrown open and in through it came a gigantic woman, a Troll-wife, with a trough in one hand and a huge chopper in the other.

As she entered she peered about her, and saw Grettir where he lay, and she ran at him. Then he jumped up and went to meet her, and they fell a-wrestling terribly, and struggled together so furiously, that all the panelling of the hall side was broken.

She was the stronger, and she dragged Grettir towards the door, and forth towards the entrance, in spite of all his efforts. She had got him as far as the entrance, when there he made a final struggle, and in the struggle the door-posts and fittings were torn from their place, and fell outwards.

Then the Troll-woman laboured away with him towards the river, and right down towards the gulfs.

Grettir was exceedingly weary, yet he saw that his only chance was to make a last effort, or be flung by her over the edge into the deep, boiling river.

All night they contended in such fashion, and ever was he drawing nearer to the edge. But just as she was preparing to fling him into the water, he got his right hand free, and he swiftly seized his short-sword, and struck off her arm; and at that moment the sun rose, and the Troll-woman was turned into stone. There she stands with her amputated arm-socket, as a mass of black basalt or lava to this day.

If the reader will recall the story of Grettir's struggle with Glam at Thorod's-stead, in the valley of Shadows, he will see that this is only the same story over again almost in every particular, – except that the first fight was with a man, and this is with a woman. The reason why this story was concocted and put in here, was to account for the stone figure which stands by the river, and which is called the Troll-wife. So far the story carries its character on its face.

Now we will go on to the next part of the tale. It did not satisfy people that Grettir should have dived under Goda-foss and found nothing, so the story was thus told:

When the goodwife, Steinvor, came from church, she thought that her house had been rudely handled; so she went to Grettir and asked him what had occurred. Then he told her all, and she prayed him to go and make a search for her husband's bones, under Goda-foss.

Grettir consented, but he asked that the priest might be sent for. His name was Stone. Steinvor sent for him, and Stone was curious to know whether his suspicions about this stranger were true. So he asked him questions, but Grettir answered that if the priest wanted to know who he was, he must find out. The priest laughed at the story of the Troll-wife, and said he did not believe a word about the struggle.

Then Grettir said, "Well, priest, I see that you have no faith in my tale; now I propose that you accompany me to Goda-foss, and we will search for the Troll himself, and see if we can recover the bones of Steinvor's husband."

The priest, Stone, agreed, and they went together to the side of the waterfall, and they had a rope with them.

Stone shook his head, and he said, "It would be too risky for anyone to venture down there."

"I will go," said Grettir. "But you mind the rope."

The priest drove a peg into the sward on the cliff, and heaped stones over it, so as to make the end firm, and then he seated himself by the heap.

Then Grettir made a loop in the end of the rope, and put a stone through the loop, and threw the stone down, and the end of the rope went to the bottom of the gulf.

"How are you going down?" asked Stone.

"I shall dive," said Grettir.

Then he stripped, but girt on a short-sword, and so leaped off the cliff into the foss. The priest saw only the soles of his feet as he went into the water, and then saw no more.

Now, Grettir had gone in below the fall, and he dived and went under the curtain of water and came up near the rock. The whirlpool below the falls was so strong that he had a desperate struggle with the water before he could reach the rock.

When he rose, he saw that the water fell over a lip of rock, quite clear, and that in the face of the rock was a cavern, and that smoke issued from this cave, and mingling with the spray and foam passed away, and was not discerned beyond.

Grettir climbed over the stones into the cave, and there he saw a great fire flaming from amidst brands of drift-wood; and there was the Stream-churl seated there, a great Troll with a hideous face. When he saw Grettir he roared and jumped up, and caught a glaive that was near him, and smote at the newcomer. Grettir hewed back at him with his short-sword, and smote the handle of the glaive and broke it. Then the giant stretched back for a sword that hung up to a peg against the side of the cave, but as he was thus leaning back Grettir smote him across the breast, and cut through to the ribs, and gashed open his belly. The blood poured forth out of the cave and mingled with the stream. When the priest saw the bloody foam beneath the fall, he was so frightened that he ran away, for he made sure that Grettir was dead.

Grettir remained in the cave, standing across the giant, till he had killed him. Then he took up a flaming brand and searched the cave through. He found nothing more than dead men's bones, and these he put together into a bag, threw that over his shoulder, and went again into the water.

He rose beyond the foss and looked up, but could see nothing of the priest; so he caught the rope, and by means of that he swarmed up to the top of the cliff.

Then he sat down, and with a sharp knife he cut runes on a staff. And what he wrote was this:

"Down into the gulf I went,Where the rocks are widely rent;Where the swirling waters fallO'er the black basaltic wall;Where, with voice of thunder, leapIn the foaming darkling deep.There the stream with icy waveWashes the grim giant's cave."

He had cut as much as he could on one stick, so now he took another, and on that he cut:

"Dreadful dweller in the caveUnderneath the falling wave,Fierce at me he brandished glaive;Full of rage at me he drove,Desperate we together strove.Lo! I smote his halft in twain,Lo! I smote and he was slain,Bleeding from each riven vein."

Then Grettir carried the bag of bones and the staves to the church, and laid them in the porch.

Next morning when the priest came to the church he found the bag of bones and the staves.

Such is the story.

Now, it is clear that a good bit of it is simply transferred from the story of Grettir going down into the cairn of Karr the Old.

The real truth of the tale is no more than what has been stated, that Grettir went under the waterfall and found nothing. It is, of course, possible that he may have hoaxed the priest; but I think it more probable that all this marvellous matter is simply tacked on to one simple fact, and that it was taken, partly from the story of Grettir in the barrow of Karr, and partly from that of his struggle with Glam.

What the saga writer does admit is that the versions of the story do not quite agree, and that – in spite of this wonderful achievement, folks did not know that Grettir was at Sandheaps that winter.

CHAPTER XXXIV

HOW GRETTIR WAS DRIVEN ABOUT

Thorir comes too Late – The Needle of Basalt – The Island of Drangey – The Terrors of the Dark – Brother holds to Brother

After a while rumours reached Thorir of Garth that either Grettir, or someone very like Grettir, – a tall, powerful man with reddish hair, and one who gave no account of whence he came, – was lodging at Sandheaps, and Thorir made ready to go there after him. Fortunately Grettir, or rather the housewife Steinvor, heard of his intention, and so Grettir made off out of the valley of the Quivering Flood before Thorir came there in quest of him.

He escaped to Maddervales, in the Horg-river Dale. This is a noble valley of the Horg River, with chains of snowy peaks on each side, of peculiar shape, barred with precipices of basalt, on which lie slopes of snow.

Some way up this valley are some very remarkable spires of basaltic rock, one of which that is like a needle is said to have been climbed by Grettir whilst staying in this valley. It is not so said in the saga, but I was told so on the spot, and the tale goes that when he climbed to the top he slipped his belt round the needle, and there it hangs round it still – but no one has been up since to find if it be there where he left it.

He could not remain long there, for Gudmund the Rich, who was farmer at Maddervales, was afraid to house him for long. Thorir of Garth would come and burn his house if he harboured Grettir. However, he kept him for some little while, and then he gave him advice what he should do.

It had come to such a pass with Grettir now that no one dared to shelter him for long, and Thorir had spies everywhere to inform him where Grettir was.

Gudmund the Rich said to Grettir: "You can find no safety anywhere that men dwell; for if there be not treachery, yet the news flies about that you are there. So I advise you to go where you shall be alone."

"Where shall I go?" asked Grettir. "I am hunted like a dog."

"There is an island," answered Gudmund, "lying in the Skagafirth, called Drangey. It is a place excellent for defence, as no one can reach it without a ladder. If you could get upon Drangey, no one could come on you unawares. You would see anyone who came by boat to the island, and you could pull up a rope-ladder, without which no one would be able to ascend."

"I will try that," said Grettir; "but I have become so fearsome in the dark that not even at the risk of my life can I endure to be alone."

"Well," said Gudmund, "that is my counsel. Trust none but yourself. Treachery lies where least expected."

Grettir thanked him for his advice, and went away west to see his mother. And he was most joyfully welcomed by her and his young brother Illugi at Biarg. There he remained some nights – not many; for Ramsfirth was only over a brow of hill, and the tidings of his return home was sure in a few days to reach the relatives of Oxmain, when he would again be set on.

I said, after giving an account of Grettir's adventure at Thorhall's-stead with Glam, that there must have been something of fact in that story, and not pure fiction; and now it has been seen how that event coloured and affected his whole after life, leaving his nerves so shaken, that he could not drive off the impression then made on him, and he was ready to run serious risks rather than be subject to the terrors that came on him in the dark when alone.

He told his mother and Illugi how it was with him, and how that he had been advised to go to Drangey, but that he could not; he dare not, in the long winter night, be on that lonely islet by himself.

Then Illugi his brother said, "Grettir, I will be with you."

"Brother holds to brother as hand clasps hand," answered Grettir, and so they parted. All that summer he wandered about in wild places, shifting his quarters repeatedly, and living how he could.

CHAPTER XXXV

ON THE ISLE

Illugi will go to Drangey – Asdis gives Consent – Asdis prophesies Woe – Within Sight of Drangey – Glaum becomes Grettir's Servant – Thorwald rows Grettir to Drangey – Thorbiorn Hook – The Bonders visit the Island – Grettir in Possession – An Inaccessible Spot

When summer was now over, and the first snow of winter began to fall, when the days were rapidly shortening, and the sun had gone out of the north to the south, where it began to move in a rapidly narrowing arc, Grettir returned to Biarg and remained there a while. "But," says the saga, "so great grew his fear in the dark that he durst go nowhere as soon as dusk set in." We can see that the many years strain on his nerves had broken them. Hunted about as a wild beast, always forced to be on his guard, never able to sleep without fear of being murdered in his sleep, the trial had told on him. This was now the winter of 1028. He was aged but thirty-one; his strength of body was not abated, only his nervous force. He had been in outlawry altogether fifteen years, three for the slaying of Skeggi, then he had been outlawed by King Olaf in 1016. On his return to Iceland he had been outlawed in 1017; this was the eleventh year of his outlawry at the suit of Thorir of Garth, an outlawry not only unjust, but according to general opinion illegal, because he had been tried and sentenced in his absence, and without any witnesses having been called to establish his guilt – condemned on hearsay evidence, and he never allowed to defend himself.

Now Illugi, Grettir's sole surviving brother, was aged fifteen, and was a very handsome, honest-looking boy.

"Grettir," said he, "you know what I said. I will go with you to Drangey, if you will take me. I know not that I will be of much help to you, but this I know, that I will be ever true to you, and will never run from you so long as you stand up. Besides, I shall like to be with you, for here at home we are ever in anxiety for news about you, always fearing the worst; but if I am at your side, I shall know how you fare."

"I would rather have you with me than anyone else," answered Grettir. "But I cannot take you unless our mother consent."

Then said Asdis, "Now I can see that I have the choice of evils. I can ill spare Illugi; yet I know your trouble, Grettir, and that something must be done for you. It grieves me, my sons, to see you both leave me; yet I will not withhold my youngest from you, Grettir. It is right that brother should help brother."

That rejoiced Illugi. Then Asdis gave her sons what things she thought they might want on the island, and they made them ready to depart.

She led them outside the farm inclosure, and then she took farewell of them, saying, "My two sons! There you depart from me, and I dreamed last night that you left me for ever, and would fall together. What is fated none may fly from. Never shall I see you again, either of you. Be it so, that one fate overtake you both. In my dream I saw your bones whitening on Drangey. Be careful and watchful. My dreams have troubled me greatly. Above all beware of witchcraft. None can cope with the craft of the old."

When she had said this she wept sore.

Then said Grettir, "Weep not, mother, for if we be set on with weapons it will be said of thee that thou hadst men and not girls for thy children. Live on well, and be hale."

So they parted. Grettir and Illugi went to their relatives and visited them, never, however, staying long in any place, and so on by Swine Lake, a long sheet of water in a shallow basin, to the Blend River. This river is of the colour of milk and water, because it is so full of undissolved snow, and milk and water is called Bland, i. e. Blend, in Icelandic. Another river enters it that is called the Black Stream, because of the dark colour of the water. Grettir turned up the valley of the Black River and then over a pass by a pretty lake lying in a mountain lap, down into a broad marshy valley in which are three or four rivers, and boiling springs pouring forth clouds of steam on the hill-slopes. The valley is commanded by a beautiful mountain peak, called the Measuring Peak, because the natives thereabouts reckon distances from it.

Grettir and Illugi went down this valley till they reached the sea, and now there opened before them a glorious view of the fiord, extending out north about forty miles, and from ten to fifteen miles across, between mountains and precipitous cliffs. A little way back from the eastern shore stood up the Unadals Jokull, crowned with perpetual snows and with glaciers rolling down the sides, and on the west, close to the sea, seeming to rise in a wall out of it and running up into fantastic peaks, was the range of Tindastoll, famous for its cornelians and agates and other precious stones. In the offing, fifteen miles out, right in the midst of the fiord, stood up the isle of Drangey with sheer cliffs, about which the sea perpetually danced and foamed.

Grettir and Illugi skirted the shore on the west. The wind was blowing cold, and snow was driving before it, as they passed a farm. The farmer stood in his door, and saw a great man stride by with an axe over his shoulder, his hood thrown back, and his wild red hair blowing about in the gale. "Verily," said the farmer, "that must be a strange fellow not to cover his head with his hood in such weather as this." Near this little farm the brothers stumbled upon a tall, thin man, dressed in rags and with a very big head. They asked each other's names, and the fellow called himself Glaum. He was out of work, and he went along with the brothers chatting, and telling them all the gossip of the neighbourhood. Then Glaum asked if they were in want of a servant, and Grettir gladly accepted him, and the man became thenceforth his constant attendant. But the fellow was a sad boaster, and most people thought him both a fool and a coward. He was not fond of work, and he spent his time strolling about the country picking up and retailing news.

Grettir and his brother and Glaum reached a farm called Reykir as the day closed in, where was a hot spring in the farm paddock. The farmer's name was Thorwald; and Grettir asked him to put him across in a boat to Drangey. Thorwald shook his head and said, "I shall get into trouble with those who have rights of pasturage on the island. I had rather not."

Then Grettir offered him a bag of silver which his mother had given him, and at the sight of this, Thorwald raised his eyebrows and thought that he might perhaps do what was asked. The distance was just five miles.

So on a moonshiny night Thorwald got three of his churls and they rowed Grettir and the two who went with him over. On reaching his destination Grettir was well pleased with the spot, for it was covered with a profusion of grass, and the sides were so precipitous that it seemed a sheer impossibility for anyone to ascend it without the aid of the rope-ladder that hung from strong staples at the summit. In summer the place would swarm with sea-birds, and at the time there were eighty sheep left on the island for fattening.

A good many farmers had rights of pasturage on the island. Hialti of Hof was one, whose brother's name was Thorbiorn Hook, of whom more hereafter. Another was Haldor, who lived at Head-strand; he had married the sister of these brothers. Biorn, Eric, and Tongue-stone were the names of three others.

Thorbiorn Hook was a hard-headed, ill-disposed fellow. His father had married a second time, and there was no love lost between the stepmother and Thorbiorn. It is said that one day as The Hook was sitting at draughts, she passed, and looking over his shoulder laughed, because he had made a bad move. Thorbiorn Hook thereupon said something abusive and insulting; this so enraged her that she snatched up a draught-man, and pressing it against his eye-socket, drove the eyeball out. He started to his feet, and with the draught-board struck her over the head such a blow that she took to her bed, and died of the injury. The Hook now went from bad to worse, and leaving home settled at Woodwick on the fiord, a small farm. It will be understood from this story that he was a violent and brutal fellow, and that, indeed, the life in his father's house had not been of an orderly description.

As many as twenty farmers claimed rights to turn out their sheep on Drangey in summer. The way they managed it is the way still employed by their successors. They take the sheep out in boats, and then put them over their shoulders, with the feet tied under their chins, and so they climb the rope-ladder, carrying the sheep up on their backs. Though all these farmers claimed rights on Drangey, The Hook and his brother had the largest share, that is to say, the right to turn out more sheep than the rest.

Now, about the time of the winter solstice, that is just before Yule, the bonders made ready to visit the island, and bring home their sheep for slaughtering for the Christmas feasting. They rowed out in a large boat, and on nearing the island were much surprised to see figures moving on top of the cliffs. How anyone had got there without their knowledge puzzled them, for Thorwald had kept his counsel, and told no one what he had done for Grettir. They pulled hard for the landing-place, where hung the ladder, but Grettir drew it up before they landed.

The bonders shouted to know who were on the crags, and Grettir, looking over, told his name and those of his companions. The farmers then asked how he had got there? who had put him across?

Grettir answered, "If you very much wish to know, it was not one of you below now speaking to us. It was someone else, who had a good boat and a pair of lusty arms."

"Let us fetch our sheep away," called the bonders, "then you come to land with us. We will not make you pay for the sheep you have eaten, and we will do you no harm."

"Well offered," answered Grettir; "but he who takes keeps hold; and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Believe me, I will not leave this island till the time of my outlawry is expired, unless I be carried from it dead."

The bonders were silenced, it seemed to them that they had got an ugly customer on Drangey, to get rid of whom would be no easy matter; so they rowed home, very ill-satisfied with the result of their expedition.

The news spread like wildfire, and was talked about all through the neighbourhood. Thorir of Garth was the more embittered, because he could see no way in which Grettir could be reached and overmastered in this inaccessible spot.

CHAPTER XXXVI

OF GRETTIR ON HERON-NESS

Grettir goes to Heron-ness – At the Games – The Hook's Challenge – Amongst Strangers – The Oath of Safe-conduct – An old Formula – A Surprise for the Bonders – Regretting the Oath – The two Brothers – Grettir returns to Drangey

Winter passed, and at the beginning of summer the whole district met at an assize held on the Herons'-ness, a headland in the Skaga-firth, between the rivers that discharge into the fiord. It is, in fact, the seaward point of a large island in the delta of the river that divides about eight miles higher up, inland. The gathering was thronged, and the litigations and merry-makings made the assize last over many days. Grettir guessed what was going on by seeing a number of boats pass to the head of the fiord. He became restless, and at last announced to his brother that he intended being present at the assize, cost what it might. Illugi thought it was sheer madness, but Grettir was resolute. He begged his brother and Glaum to watch the ladder and await his return.

Now, Grettir was on very good terms with the farmer at Reykir, and with some others on that side of the firth, and they were not unwilling to help him. Sometimes his mother sent things to the brothers that she thought they would need, and then there were not wanting men to take these over to the island. So Grettir got put across by his friend Thorwald to the mainland, and he borrowed of him a set of old clothes, and thus attired he went along the coast boldly to Heron-ness. He had on a fur cap, which was drawn closely over his eyes, and concealed his face, so that no one might recognize him. Now, in parts of Iceland, the flies are such torments that men have to wear literally cloth helmets, with only nose and eyes showing, the cloth fitting tight to the head, and round over the ears and neck, exactly like a helmet, or a German knitted sledging cap. When I was in Iceland, when the flies were troublesome, I put my head into a butterfly net, and buckled it round my neck tightly with a leather strap. Now, Grettir's cap was something like those I have described, and no one was surprised at his wearing it, as the whole of that valley is one vast marsh, and is infested with flies that blacken the air and madden men and beasts.