grettir the outlaw 20

grettir the outlaw 20

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.

 

So Onund turned his vessel in towards the head of the splendid bay

Hunafloi; but seeing a creek that seemed fairly sheltered, having on the

north some quaint spikes of rock, and a great mountain to the south like

a horn, and finding that this fiord gave a turn northwards under the

shelter of the mountains, the men with Onund’s consent ran in there, and

having anchored the vessel, entered a boat and rowed ashore. On

reaching the strand they were met by men who asked them who they were

and what they did there. Onund said he had come with peaceable

intentions, and then he was told that all that fiord was occupied, and

that the owner of the land was Eric Trap, a wealthy man. Eric came to

the beach and hospitably invited Onund and his ship’s crew to his house.

There Onund told him his difficulty. He had come to Iceland too late,

and he feared that he would be able nowhere to find unclaimed lands.

 

Eric considered a while, and then said there was more land that he had

claimed than he could well keep in hand, and that he would be pleased to

accommodate a man of such noble family and character as was Onund.

Onund pressed him to receive payment for the land, but this Eric

generously refused. When he had come there, said Eric, the country had

been unpeopled, and he had just claimed what he liked, and had claimed

more than he wanted. Now he desired to have neighbours, and if Onund

would be friendly none would be better pleased than himself to have him

near.

 

This gratifying offer satisfied Onund, but, as the saying is, ’Don’t

look a gift-horse in the mouth,’ he did not at once close with the

offer, but asked to be allowed to see the land Eric was so ready to part

with.

 

Accordingly he rode with Eric along the coast, passed the headland where

was the horn-shaped mountain, and came upon a fiord where some boiling

springs poured up in the sea out of its depths; the mountains on the

north came down so abruptly to the water’s edge that the only habitable

ground lay at the head of the firth and on the south side, having a

northern aspect. Moreover there was a lofty range to the south, so that

in winter the sun would never light up this firth. Onund did not much

like it, he thought that Eric had offered him the place because he did

not care for it himself; so he went across the mountain range and down

into the little bay south of it. As they rode it was over snow, a long

descent of wintry mountain, till they reached a valley in which was a

hot spring, a little lake, and some grass. The situation was somewhat

more inviting than that Onund had already seen, but it was not very

attractive, and looking back on the long dreary slope of snow he said,

"A cold back! a cold back! I would like to have had one warmer." "That

is not easily acquired," answered Eric. "Further south there is no

fiord for many miles till you come to one occupied by a man called

Biarni. That I can tell you is a fertile settlement, there are woods

and pastures, and hot springs and good anchorage; but that is not my

land to give you."

 

Then Onund sang a stave:

 

"All across life’s strands do run,

I who many war-wagers won,

Meadows green and pastures fair

Once were mine, and woods to spare.

Left behind, I rid the steed

That o’er wave, with wind doth speed.[#]

Cold—cold, icy back behind,

This is what alone I find,

Hard the lot that fate doth yield

To the bearer of the shield."