grettir the outlaw 19
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
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