Grettir the Outlaw 2

Grettir the Outlaw 2

Iceland never was, and it is not now, a much-peopled island. The

farmhouses are for the most part far apart, and the farms are of very

considerable extent, because, owing to the severity of the climate, very

little pasturage is obtained over a wide extent of country for the sheep

and cattle. The population lives round the coast, on the fiords or

creeks of the sea, or on the rivers that flow into these fiords. The

centre of the island is occupied by a vast waste of ice-covered

mountain, and desert black as ink strewn with volcanic ash and sand, or

else with a region of erupted lava that is impassable, because in

cooling it has exploded, and forms a country of bristling spikes and

gulfs and sharp edges, very much like the wreck of a huge ginger-beer

bottle factory.

 

What are now farmhouses were the halls and mansions of families of noble

descent. Indeed, the original settlers in Iceland were the nobles of

Norway who left their native land to avoid the tyranny of Harold

Fairhair, who tried to crush their power so as to make himself a

despotic king in the land.

 

These Norse nobles came in their boats to Iceland, bringing with them

their wives, children, their thralls or slaves, and their cattle; and

they settled all round the coast. The present Icelanders are descended

from these first colonists.

 

Now, the history of Iceland for a few hundred years consists of nothing

but the history of the quarrels of these great families. Iceland was

without any political organization, but it had an elected lawman or

judge, and every year the heads of the families rode to Thingvalla, a

plain in the south-west, where they brought their complaints, carried on

their lawsuits, and had them settled by the judge. There was no army, no

navy, no government in Iceland for a long time; also no foreign wars,

and no internal revolutions.

 

These noble families settled in the valleys and upon the fiords thought

a good deal of themselves, and they carefully preserved, at first orally

then in writing, the record of their pedigrees, and also the tradition

of the famous deeds of their great men.

 

In summer there is no night; in winter, no day. In winter there is

little or nothing to be done but sit over the fire, sing songs, and tell

yarns. Now, in winter the Icelanders told the tales of the brave men of

old in their families, and so the tradition was handed on from father to

son, the same stories told every winter, till all the particulars became

well known. At the same time there can be no doubt that little

embellishments were added, some exaggerations were indulged in, and here

and there the grand deed of some other man was grafted into the story of

the family hero. About two hundred or two hundred and fifty years after

the death of Grettir, his history was committed to writing, and then it

became fixed—nothing further was added to it, and we have his story

after having travelled down over two hundred years as a tradition. That

was plenty of time for additions and emendations, and the hobgoblin and

ghost stories that come into his life are some of these embellishments.

But the main facts of his life are true history. We are able to decide

this by comparing his story with those of other families in the same

part of the island, and to see whether they agree as to dates, and as to

the circumstances narrated in them.

 

In the north-west of Iceland is an immense bay called the Huna-floi,

which branches off into several creeks, the largest of which is called

the Ramsfirth, and the next to that is the Middlefiord. Into this flows

a river that has its rise in the central desert, in a perfect tangle of

lakes. Three rivers issuing from these lakes unite just above Biarg,

and pour their waters a short morning’s ride lower through sands into

the Middlefirth.

 

The valley is not cheerful, running from north to south. Biarg lies on

the east side, and faces the western sun. The moor which lies behind

it, and forms the hill on the other side of the river, is not broken and

picturesque, and if it were not for the peak of Burfell, covered with

snow a good part of the year, the view from Biarg would be as

uninteresting as any to be found in the land. But then, when one rides

down to the coast, or ascends the moor, what a splendid view bursts on

the sight! The great Polar Sea is before one, intensely blue, not with

the deep ultramarine of the Mediterranean, but with the blue of the

nemophyla or forget-me-not, rolling in from the mysterious North; and

across the mighty bay of the Huna-floi can be seen the snowy mountains

of that extraordinary peninsula which runs out to the north-west of

Iceland, and is only just not converted into an island because connected

with Iceland by a narrow strip of land. That great projection is like a

hand with fiords between the fingers of land, and glacier-mountains

where are the knuckles; but the wrist is very narrow indeed, only about

one English mile across, and there lies a trough along this junction,

with a little stream and a lake in it. Now, at this wrist, as we may

call it, lies the farm of Eyre, where, somewhat later, lived the sister

of Grettir, who married a man that farmed there, named Glum.

 

Looking away across the great blue bay, the mountains of the hand may be

seen rising out of the sea, and looking like icebergs.

 

Grettir the Strong was the son of a well-to-do bonder, or yeoman, who

lived at Biarg, and was descended from some of the great nobles of

Norway. His father’s name was Asmund with the Grey-head, and his

mother’s name was Asdis.

 

He had a brother called Atli, a gentle, kindly young fellow, who never

wittingly quarrelled with anyone, and was liked by all with whom he had

to do. He had also two sisters—one was called Thordis, and she was

married to Glum of Eyre—but neither come into the story; and he had

another sister called Rannveig, who was married to Gamli of Melar, at

the head of Ramsfirth. He had also a little brother called Illugi, of

whom more hereafter. Grettir was not a good-looking boy; he had reddish

hair, a pale face full of freckles, and light blue eyes. He was

broad-built, not tall as a boy, though in the end he grew to be a very

big man.

 

He was not considered a good-tempered or sociable boy. He seemed lazy

and sullen; he liked to sit by the fire without speaking to anyone,

listening to what was said, and brooding over what he had heard.

 

If his father set him a task, he did it so unwillingly, and so badly

that Asmund Greyhead regretted having set him to do anything.

 

Now, during the winter, as we have already seen, when there is but a

very little daylight, and the nights are vastly long, when, moreover,

the whole land is deep in snow, so that there is no farm-work that can

be done, and no travelling about to visit neighbours, it was, and is

still, usual in Iceland for those in the house to tell tales, or sagas,

as they are called. Some of these sagas relate to the old gods of the

Norsemen, some are fabulous stories of old heroes who never existed, or,

if they did exist, have had all sorts of fantastic legends tacked on to

their histories; but other sagas are the tales of the doings of

ancestors of the family.

 

Now, among the sagas that Grettir used to hearken to with greatest

delight was that of old Onund Treefoot, his great-grandfather, who first

settled in Iceland. And this was the tale:

 

 

Onund, the son of Ufeigh Clubfoot, son of Ivar the Smiter, was a mighty

Viking in Norway; that is, he went about every summer harrying the

coasts of England, Ireland, and Scotland. He joined with three friends,

and they had five ships together, and one summer they sailed to the

Hebrides—which were then called the Sudereys, or southern isles. The

Bishop of the Isle of Man is still called Bishop of Sodor and Man,

because his diocese originally included the Sudereys. Then out against

them came Kiarval, king of the Hebrides, with five ships, and they gave

him battle, and there was a hard fray. But the men of Onund were the

mightiest warriors. On each side many fell, but the end of the battle

was that the king fled with only one ship. So Onund took the four

vessels and great spoil, and he wrought great havoc on the coast,

plundering and burning, and so in the fall of the year returned to

Norway. In the history of England, and in that of Scotland and of

Ireland, we read of the terrible annoyance given to the natives of Great

Britain and Ireland by the northern pirates; and, indeed, they conquered

Dublin, and established a kingdom there, and also took to themselves

Orkney. Well, when Onund returned to Norway he did not find that

matters were pleasant there; for King Harald the Unshorn had begun to

establish himself sole king in Norway. Hitherto there had been many

small kings and earls; but Harald had taken an oath that he would not

cut or trim his hair till he had subdued all under his power, and made

himself supreme throughout the land.

 

A great many bonders and all the little kings united against him, and

there was a great battle fought at Hafrsfiord—the greatest battle that

had as yet been fought in Norway. Onund was in the battle along with

his friend, King Thorir Longchin, and he set his ship alongside of that

of King Longchin. King Harald ran his ship up alongside of that of

Longchin, grappled it, and boarded it. There was a furious fight, and

Harald sent on board his Bearsarks, a set of half-mad ruffians, who wore

not bear but wolf skins, and who were said to lead charmed lives, so

that no weapon would wound them. Thorir Longchin and all his men were

killed; and then King Harald cut away the ship and ran up against that

of Onund. Onund was in the fore part, and he fought manfully. As the

grappling-irons of Harald caught his ship, Onund made a sweep with his

longsword at the man who threw the irons, and in so doing he put his leg

over the bulwark. Then one on the king’s ship threw a spear at Onund.

He saw it flung, and leaned his head back to let it fly over him, and as

he did so one on the king’s ship smote at him with a battle-axe, and the

axe fell on his leg below the knee and shore his leg off. Then Onund

fell back on board his own vessel, and his men carried him across into

that of a friend named Thrand, who lay alongside of him on the other

board. And Thrand had a great cauldron there of pitch boiled, and Onund

set his knee in the boiling pitch, and never blinked nor uttered a cry.

That staunched the blood. If he had not done this he would have bled to

death.

 

Now, Thrand saw that King Harald was gaining the mastery everywhere, so

he fled away with his ship and sailed west.

 

Onund was healed of his wound, but ever after he walked with a wooden

leg, and that is why he got the name of Onund Treefoot.

 

After the battle of Hafrsfiord, Onund could only return to Norway by

stealth, and he could not recover his lands there, so he deemed it

wisest for him to sail away and seek a home elsewhere. That is how he

left Norway and settled in Iceland.

 

And when King Harald saw himself lord and master through all the land,

then he had his hair trimmed and combed, and it was so long and so

beautiful, that ever after he who had been called "The Unshorn" went by

the name of "Fairhair," and in history he is known as King Harald

Fairhair.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER II.*

 

*HOW GRETTIR PLAYED ON THE ICE.*

 

 

_An Evil Boyhood—Golf on the Ice—Grettir Quarrels with Audun—A

Threat of Vengeance_

 

 

There are several tales told of Grettir when he was a boy, which show

that he was a rough and unkindly lad. He was set by his father to keep

geese on the moors, and this made him angry, so he threw stones at the

geese and killed or wounded them all.

 

The old man suffered from lumbago, and in winter when unwell asked his

wife and the boys to rub his back by the fire; but when Grettir was

required to do this, he lost his temper, and on one occasion he snatched

up a wool-carding comb and dug it into his old father’s back.

 

Many other things he did which made those at home not like him, and

there was not much love lost between him and his father. The fact was

that Grettir was a headstrong, wilful fellow, and bitterly had he to pay

in after life for this youthful wilfulness and obstinacy. It was these

qualities, untamed in him, that wrecked his whole life, and it may be

said brought ruin and extinction on his family. There were great and

good qualities in Grettir’s nature, but they did not show when he was

young; only much suffering and cruel privations brought out in the end

the higher and nobler elements that were in him.

 

It is so with all who have any good in them, if by early discipline it

is not manifested, then it is brought out by the rough usage of misfortune in after life.