Grettir the Outlaw

"I claim the man," said Thorbiorn; "I forbid him to do a stroke of work here. I expect him returned to me."

"Nay," said Atli, "take the man, you are welcome to him; but I cannot bind him hand and foot and convey him to your house. If you can get him to go with you, well and good, I will not detain him."

Atli had answered fairly, but this did not satisfy Thorbiorn; he knew that he could not drag the man back to his farm, nor could he persuade him to follow, so he rode home in a mighty bad temper, his heart boiling with anger against Atli. And now he thought that he would at one and the same time punish Atli for taking away his servant, and wipe out the wrong of the slaying of the Slowcoach.

In the evening when the men came in from work, Atli said that Thorbiorn had been there and had reclaimed his churl, and Atli bade the fellow depart and go back to his master.

Then the man said: "That's a true proverb, He who is most praised is found most faulty at the test. I came to you because I heard so much good of you, and now that I have toiled for you without wages all the early summer, as I have worked for none else, you want to kick me out of doors as winter draws on. I will not go. You will have to beat me as Thorbiorn beat me to make me leave this house, and then, even, I am not sure but that I shall remain in spite of being beaten."

Atli did not know exactly what to do. He did not wish to ill-treat the fellow, and yet without ill-treatment there was no getting rid of him. So he let him remain on.

One day a warm wet rainy mist covered the land, the hills were enveloped in cloud; Atli sent out some of his men to mow at a distance where there was some grass, and others he sent out fishing. He remained at home himself with only two or three men.

That day Thorbiorn rode over the ridge that divided the dales, with a helmet on his head, a sword at his side, and a barbed spear in his hand. He came to Biarg, and no one noticed his approach. He went to the main door, and knocked at it. Then he drew back behind the buildings, so that no one might see him from the door. In Iceland the walls of a house between the gables are buttressed with turf – thick walls or buttresses that project several feet, and are about six or nine feet thick. Such buttresses stood one on each side of the hall door at Biarg, and behind one of these Thorbiorn concealed himself.

When he had knocked at the door, a woman came to it, unbarred and looked up and down the terrace or platform on which the house was built, but saw no one. Thorbiorn peeped from behind the wall of turf and caught a glimpse of her, and then backed again into his hiding-place. The woman then returned into the house, and told Atli that there was no one outside.

She had hardly spoken before Thorbiorn knocked again. Then Atli jumped up and said: "There must be someone there, and I will go and see myself who it is."

Then he went forth and looked out of the door, but saw no one, as Thorbiorn had again retreated behind the bank of turf. The water was streaming down, so Atli did not go from under cover, but laid a hand on each of the door-posts, and looked up and down the valley.

Just as he was looking away from where Thorbiorn was concealed, that man suddenly swung himself round the bank of turf, and with all his might drove the spear against Atli, using both his hands. The spear entered him below the ribs, and ran right through him. Atli uttered no cry, and fell forward over the threshold. At that the women rushed forth, and they took Atli up, but he was dead.

Then Thorbiorn, who had run to his horse, which was tied up behind the house, rode out on the terrace, and halting before the door proclaimed that he had done this deed.

Now this was a formality which, according to Icelandic law, made his act to be not regarded as a murder. A murder by law was the slaying of a man by one who concealed his name.

Then Thorbiorn rode home.

The goodwife, Asdis, sent for her men, and Atli's body was laid out, and he was buried beside his father, old Asmund, who had died during the winter. There was a church in those days at Biarg, but there is none there now. When I was there I asked of the farmer now living in Biarg where was the old churchyard, but its site was lost; so I could not tell where were the graves of Atli the kind-hearted, honourable man, and the rest of the family.

Great was the lamentation through the district at the death of one so loved and respected, and hard things were said of Thorbiorn for what he had done.

CHAPTER XXI

THE RETURN OF GRETTIR

An Old Charge – Trial in Absence – Three Messengers of Ill – Grettir and his Mother – Grettir goes to Revenge Atli

That same summer news reached Iceland of the burning of the hostel by Grettir. When Thorir of Garth heard of the death of his sons he was furious. He rode to the great annual assize at Thingvalla, with a large retinue, and charged Grettir with having killed his boys maliciously; and he demanded that for this offence Grettir should be outlawed.

Then Skapti the judge said: "If things are as reported, then surely Grettir has committed an evil deed; but we have only heard one side of the story, and we only know of what has happened at third hand, by report; there are two ways of telling every story. Let us wait till Grettir returns to Iceland. There will be time enough for this action to be taken. I will not give my word that Grettir is guilty till we have heard what he has to say for himself."

But Thorir was such a powerful chieftain that he overbore all resistance. It was said that he could not lawfully take action against a man in his absence; but this was overridden by Thorir, who by packing the court was able to carry out what he wanted. Moreover, owing to the death of Atli there was no one to oppose him vigorously.

He pushed on matters so hard that nought could avail to acquit Grettir, and he was proclaimed an outlaw throughout the whole of Iceland, and Thorir also put a price on his head of many ounces of silver, which he said he would pay to that man who would kill him in Norway or Iceland, or wherever he might find him.

Towards the close of the summer Grettir arrived in a vessel off the mouth of the White-river, an exile from Norway.

It was a still summer night when the ship dropped anchor. A boat came from the shore, and was rowed to the ship. Grettir stood watching it from the bows, leaning on his sword. As it touched the side of the ship, he called, "What news do you bring?"

"Are you Grettir, Asmund's son?" asked a man rising in the boat.

"I am," replied Grettir.

"Then we bear you ill news: your father is dead."

Another man stood up in the boat, and said: "Grettir, he was an old man, and you can hardly have expected to hear that he was still alive. But what I have to say concerns you as closely, and is unexpected. Your brother Atli has been slain by Thorbiorn Oxmain."

Then a third man rose and said: "But these tidings concern others first and you secondly. What I have to say concerns you mainly. You have been made an outlaw throughout the length and breadth of the land, and a price is set on your head."

It is said that Grettir did not change colour, nor did a muscle in his whole body quiver; but he lifted up his voice and sang this strain —

"All at once are showeredRound me, the Rhymer,Tidings sad – my exile,Father's loss and brother's,Branching boughs of battle!Many a blue-blade-breakerShall suffer for my sorrow."

The branching bough of battle is a periphrasis for a man, so also is a blue-blade-breaker; and it is the use of such periphrases that constituted poetry to Icelandic ideas. One night Grettir swam ashore. He thought that his enemies would be awaiting him, and should he venture to land in a boat would fall on him in overwhelming numbers; so he took to the water and swam to a point at some distance. Then he took a horse that he found in a farm near where he came ashore, and he rode across country to the Middle-firth, and reached home in two days. He reached Biarg during the night when all were asleep; so instead of disturbing the household, he opened a private door, stepped into the hall, stole up to his mother's bed, and threw his arms round her neck.

She started up, and asked who was there. When he told her, she clasped him to her heart, and laid her head, sobbing, on his breast, saying. "Oh, my son! I am bereaved of my children! Atli, my eldest, has been foully murdered, and you are outlawed; only Illugi remains."

Grettir remained at home a few days in close concealment. Even the men of the farm were not suffered to know that he was there. He heard the story of how Thorbiorn Oxmain had basely and in cowardly manner slain his brother, when Atli was unarmed; and Grettir considered that it was his duty to avenge his death.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SLAYING OF OXMAIN

By the Boiling Spring – Grettir knocks the Nail from his Spear – Oxmain places his Son in Ambush – The Fight with Oxmain – Grettir's Spear-head – The Law concerning Manslaying – A Rising Black Cloud

One fine day, soon after his return, Grettir mounted a horse, and without an attendant rode over the hill to the Ramsfirth, and came down to Thorod's-stead. This is still a good farm, the best on the fiord, and it is by far the best built pile of buildings thereabouts. It faces the south and is banked up with turf to the north, to shelter it against the cold and furious gales from the Polar Sea. The soil is comparatively rich there, and there are tracts of good grass land on the slope of the hill by the side of the inlet of sea. The farm buildings consists at present of a set of wooden gable ends painted red, and the roofs are all of turf, where the buttercups grow and shine luxuriantly.

Grettir rode up to the farmhouse, about noon, and knocked at the door. Some women came out and welcomed him; they did not know who he was, or they would have been more sparing in their welcome. He asked after Thorbiorn, and was told that he was gone to the meadow, a little way further down the firth, where he had gone to bind hay, and that he had taken with him his son, called Arnor, who was a boy of sixteen.

When Grettir heard this, he said farewell to the women, and turned his horse's head to ride down the fiord towards a boiling spring that bubbles up out of the rock, throwing up a cloud of steam, and running in a scalding rill into the sea. Now the rock is perhaps warm there, or the warm water helps vegetation; certain it is that thereabouts the grass grows thickly, and there it was that Thorbiorn was making his bundles of hay. As Grettir rode along near the water, below the field, Thorbiorn saw him. He had just made up one bundle of hay, and he was engaged on another. He had set his shield and sword against the load, and his lad Arnor had a hand-axe beside him.

Thorbiorn looked hard at Grettir as he came along, and he said to the boy: "There is a fellow riding this way. I wonder who he is, and whether he wants us. Leave tying up the hay, and let us find out what his errand is."

Then Grettir leaped off his horse; he had a helmet on his head, and was girt with the short sword, and he bore a great spear in his hand that had a long sharp blade but no barbs. The socket was inlaid with silver, and a nail went through the socket fastening it on to the staff of the spear. He sat down on a stone, and knocked the nail out. His reason was that he intended to throw the spear at Thorbiorn, and if he missed him, he thought the spear-head and the haft would come apart, and would be of no use to Thorbiorn to fling back at him.

Oxmain said to his son: "I verily believe that is Grettir, Asmund's son, he is so big; I know no one else so big. He has got occasion enough against us, and if he is come here it is not with peaceable intentions. Now we must manage cunningly. I do not know that he has seen you; so you hide behind the bundle of hay, and lie hid till you see him engaged with me. Then you steal up noiselessly behind with your axe, and strike him one blow with all your might between the shoulder-blades. When I see you coming up, I will fight the more furiously so as to draw off his attention, that he may not be able to look round. Have no fear, he cannot hurt you, as his back will be turned to you. Get close enough to make sure, and you will kill him with one blow."

Now Grettir came uphill into the field, and when he came within a spear-throw of them, he cast his spear at Thorbiorn; but the head was looser on the shaft than he had expected it would be, and it became detached in its flight, and fell off and dropped into a marshy place and sank, and the shaft flew on but a little way and then fell harmlessly to the ground.

Then Thorbiorn took his shield, put it before him, drew his sword and ran against Grettir and engaged him. Grettir had, as already said, the short sword that he had taken out of the barrow, and with that he warded off the blows of Thorbiorn and smote at him. Oxmain was a very strong man, and his shield was covered with well-tanned hide stretched over oak, and the blade of Grettir fell on it, hacked into it, and sometimes caught so that he could not at once withdraw it. Thorbiorn now began to deal more furious blows. Now just as Grettir was wrenching his sword away from the shield, into which it had bitten deep, he saw someone close behind him with an axe raised. Instantly he tore out his sword and smote back over his head to protect his back from his assailant behind, and the blow came on Arnor just as he was on the point of driving his axe in between the shoulders of Grettir, so that he staggered back, mortally wounded. Thorbiorn, whose eye was on his son, retreated a step, lost his presence of mind for a moment, and thereupon down came Grettir's sword on his shield and split it in half. Grettir pursued his advantage, pressed on him, and struck him down at his feet, dead at a blow.

Then he went in search of his silver-inlaid spear-head, but could not find it. So he mounted his horse again, rode on to the nearest farmhouse, and there told what he had done. Many, many years after, about 1250, the spear-head was found in the marsh. When I was in Iceland I also obtained a very similar spear-head, only not silver-inlaid, that was found in the volcanic sand; it had probably been lost in a very similar manner.

It seems to us in these civilized times very horrible this continual slaying that took place in Iceland; but we must remember that, as already said, there were in those days not a single policeman, soldier, or officer of justice in the island. When a trial took place, the prosecutor was the person aggrieved, or the nearest akin. The court pronounced sentence, and then the prosecutor was required to carry out what the law had ordered. He was to be constable and executioner. Now the law, or custom which was the same as law, for there was no written code, was that when one man had been killed, the next of kin was bound to prosecute the slayer and obtain from him money compensation, or outlawry, or else he might kill the slayer himself, or one of his kin. This latter provision seems to us outrageous, that because A kills B, therefore that C, who is B's brother, may kill D, who is brother to A. But so the law or custom stood and was recognized as binding, and not to carry out the law or custom was regarded as dishonourable. It must be remembered that Iceland was colonized about A.D. 900, and that Grettir was born only about 97 years after, and that Christianity was adopted in 1000; that is to say, it was sanctioned by law, but no one was forced to become a Christian unless he liked. Also, that there was no government in the island, no central authority, and that the colonists lived much as do the first settlers now in a new colony which is not under the crown, or like the diggers at the gold mines.

When Grettir had slain Thorbiorn Oxmain, he went home to Biarg and told his mother, who said it was well that Atli's blood was wiped out by the death of the man who had so basely and in such cowardly fashion slain him; but she said she foresaw more trouble coming like a rising black cloud, and that this would make it more difficult for Grettir to get relief from his outlawry.

CHAPTER XXIII

AT LEARWOOD

At Hvamsfiord – Iceland Scenery – An Iceland Paradise – One Lucky Chance – Kuggson's Story – Onund's Voyage – In Search of Uninhabited Land – The Landing – Eric's Gift – A Cold Back! – Better than Nothing – An Oversight – Death of Onund – Planning a Murder – Killing the Curd Bottle – The Churl's Axe – The Red Stream – Hard Times – The "Wooden-tub" – The Stranded Whale – The Fight over the Whale – Retreat of the Coldbackers – Before the Assize – The Judgment – An Evil Act – Ill-luck follows Ill

After the slaying of Thorbiorn Oxmain, Grettir would not remain at home, lest trouble should come on his mother; so he rode across the Neck first of all to his brother-in-law, at Melar, at the head of the Ramsfirth, to ask his advice. His brother-in-law there was called Gamli; he was not very rich or powerful, and he represented to Grettir that it would never do for him to remain in such near proximity to Thorod's-stead, in the same valley, at the head of the same firth. This Grettir acknowledged, so he stayed there but a few days, and then rode over the high table-land to the Lax, or Salmon-dale, where was the watershed, and the river of the salmon ran west into Hvamsfiord. One of the most interesting and best written of the Icelandic sagas relates to the history of this valley. The Hvamsfiord is by nature wonderfully protected against western storms, for the entrance is almost blocked to the west by a countless multitude of islands, of which only one is moderately large, and to the north-west is not only a grassy promontory, but also a natural breakwater of three long narrow islands.

Outside the cluster of islands are eddies and whirlpools, and the passage between them is not always safe; but when a vessel has passed through between the islets it enters as into a wide beautiful inland lake, the shape of which is that of a boot, with the sole to the east and the toe turned up north. Moreover, along the north side of this sheltered firth are high and steep hills that screen from the water all gales sweeping from the Pole; and in the glens and under the crags of these hills exposed to the south are beautiful woods of birch.

Formerly in Iceland the woods were much more extensive than they are now; for the old settlers found in them plenty of fuel, and the birch-trees grew to a fair size. Now, alas, with fatal want of consideration, the trees have been so cut down that the woods are rare and the trees are small. There is hardly a birch-tree whose top one cannot touch when riding through a wood on a little pony no bigger than a Shetlander.

Exactly at the toe of the boot is a rich grassy basin, where two streams flow into the fiord, and here is a beautiful view from the water. One sees in front the green basin, and above it rise the mountains to Skeggoxl, a cone covered with eternal snows and with glaciers streaming down its flanks. Here, in a sweet sheltered nook, basking in the sun, in spring with the river-side and the marshes blazing with immense marigolds, and with the short grass slopes speckled with blue tiny gentianella, is the farm, and near it the wooden church of Hvam. In another part of the basin is a settlement called Asgard, the "Home of the gods;" for those who settled there first thought the spot so delightful, so warm, that they named it after the sunny land of fable, where it was said that their ancestors, the hero-gods of the northern race, had lived in the east before ever they crossed Russia and settled in Norway. Asgard to their minds was Paradise.

Paradise in Iceland is not a paradise elsewhere; nevertheless, to one who has travelled over barren hills and between glaciers, this warm nook with its green grass and woods of glistening birch was a place of inexpressible charm. Now, just to the east, where would come the ball of the toe, looking across the end of this still blue lake-like fiord, up the valleys to the snows of Skeggoxl, is the farm of Learwood, in a grassy flat by the water, backed by birchwood and hills, and screened from the east as well as from the north winds. Here lived Thorstein Kuggson. Kuggson's mother was the daughter of Asgeir, the father of Audun of Willowdale, with whom Grettir had a tussle on the ice, and whom he afterwards upset with his foot when he was carrying curds. Kuggson through his father was related to the influential and wealthy family in the Laxdale, whose history is well known through the noble saga that relates the story of that valley.

Grettir spent the autumn with his relative Kuggson. Now, whilst he was there he fell to talking one day with Kuggson about his trial of strength with Audun, and Grettir said how glad he was that nothing had come of it. It was said that he was a man of ill-luck; yet luck had befriended him on that occasion in sending Bard to interrupt the struggle before both lost their tempers and the quarrel became serious.

Then said Kuggson: "You remind me of the story of Bottle-back, which, of course, you know."

"It is many years since I have heard the tale," answered Grettir; "for, indeed, I can be little at home now, and am out of the way of hearing stories of one's forefathers. Tell me the tale."

Then Kuggson told Grettir

The Story of Bottle-Back

"You know very surely, Grettir, that your great-grandfather was Onund Treefoot. He was so called because in the great battle of Haf's fiord, fought against King Harald, he had one of his legs cut off below the knee. You have been told how that Onund had first to wife Asa, and that he settled at Cold-back; and he had by his first wife two sons, Thorgeir and Ufeig, who was also called Grettir, and it is after him that you are named. Onund's second wife was the mother of Thorgrim Grizzlepate, your grandfather.

"The story I am going to tell you relates to Thorgeir, the eldest son of Onund, and how he got the name of Bottle-back. You might think he acquired the designation from a rounded back. It was not so, he had a back as straight as yours.

"But to understand the story of how he got the name, I must go back to the time when Onund, your great-grandfather, came to Iceland. That was in the year of Christ 900; he was unable to remain any longer in Norway, because the king, Harald, was in such enmity with him. So he resolved that he would come to Iceland and seek there a new home. Now this was somewhat late, for the colonization of this island had begun some five or six and twenty years before, and there had come out great numbers of Norwegian chiefs, who fled from the rapacity and the vengeance of King Harald Fairhair, who outlawed every man who took up arms against him."

But the story shall be told not in Kuggson's words, but in mine.

Onund sailed to Iceland from Norway in the summer of A.D. 900, and he had a hard voyage and baffling winds from the south that drove him far away to the north into the Polar Sea, till he came near the pack-ice; and then there came a change, and he made south, and after much beating about, for he had lost his reckoning, he made land, and found that he had come upon the north coast of Iceland, and those who knew the looks of the land said he was off the Strand Bay. To the west rose the rocks and glaciers of the Drang Jokull, and to the east the long promontory that separated the Hunafloi from Skagafiord.

Presently a ten-oared boat put off from shore, rowed by six men, and approached Onund's vessel, and the men in the boat hailed the vessel and asked whose it was. Onund gave his name and inquired to whom the men belonged. They said they were servant men belonging to a farm at Drangar, just under the mighty field of glacier of Drang Jokull. Onund asked if all the land was taken up by settlers, and the men answered that along the north coast all such land as was worth anything was taken already, and that most was also settled to the south.

Then Onund consulted with his shipmates what was to be done, whether coast along the north protuberance of Iceland in search of uninhabited land, or go into the great bay and see whether any chance opened for them there. They had arrived so late in Iceland after the main rush of settlers that they could not expect to get any really favourable quarters. The men advised against exploring the north, exposed to the cold gales from the Polar Sea, where the fiords would be blocked with ice half the year; and thought there would be no harm trying what they could find further south.