grettir the outlaw 24

grettir the outlaw 24

So the farmers considered, and decided that another man who lived at

Giorvidale should have the custody of Grettir.

 

"You are most obliging," said he; "but I have only my old woman with me

at home, and how can we two manage him? Lay on a man only such a burden

as he can bear."

 

They considered again, and came to the conclusion that one Therolf of

Ere should have the charge of Grettir.

 

But he replied, "No, thank you, I am short of provisions, there is

hardly food enough at my house for my own party."

 

Then they appointed that he should be put with another farmer; but he

said, "If he had been taken in my land, well and good, but as he has

not, I won’t be encumbered with him."

 

Then every farmer was tried, and all had excuses why they should not

have the care of Grettir; and consequently, as no one would have him,

they resolved to hang him. So they set to work and constructed a rude

gallows there in the wood, and a mighty clatter they made over it.

 

Whilst thus engaged, it happened that Thorbiorg, Vermund’s wife, was

riding up to her mountain dairy, attended by five servants. She was a

stirring, clever woman, and when she saw so many men gathered together

and making such a noise, she rode towards them to inquire what they were

about.

 

"Who is that lying in bonds there?" she asked.

 

Then Grettir answered and gave his name.

 

"Why, now, is it, Grettir," she said, "that you have given so much

trouble in this neighbourhood?"

 

"I must needs be somewhere," he answered. "And wherever I am, there I

must have food."

 

"It is a piece of ill-luck that you should have fallen into the hands of

these bumpkins," said she. Then turning to the farmers she asked what

they purposed doing with Grettir.

 

"Hang him," answered they.

 

"I do not deny that Grettir may have deserved the rope," said Thorbiorg;

"but I doubt if you are doing wisely in taking his life. He belongs to

a great family, and his death will not be to your quietness and content

if you kill him." Then she said to Grettir, "What will you do if your

life be given you?"

 

"You propose the conditions," said he.

 

"Very well, then you must swear not to revenge on these men what they

have done to you to-day, and not to do any violence more in the

Ice-firth."

 

Grettir took the required oath, and so he was loosed from his bonds. He

said afterwards that never had he a harder thing to do than to control

his temper, when set free, and not to knock the farmers’ heads together

like nuts and crack them, for what they had done to him.

 

Then Thorbiorg invited him to her house, and he went with her to the

Water-firth, and there abode till her husband returned, and when Vermund

heard all, then he was well pleased; and deemed that his wife had acted

with great prudence and kindness. He asked Grettir to remain there as

long as was consistent with his safety, and Grettir accepted his

hospitality, and continued there as his guest till late in the autumn,

when he went south to Learwood, where was Kuggson, with whom he purposed

spending the winter. However, he was not able to stay there, for it

soon became known where he was, and his enemies prepared to take him.

He accordingly left and went to a friend in another fiord, and remained

a short while with him, but was obliged for the same reason to fly

thence also; and so he spent the winter dodging about from place to

place, never able to remain long anywhere, because his enemies were so

resolved on his death, and were on the alert to fall on him wherever

they heard he was sheltering.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XXVI.*

 

*IN THE DESERT.*

 

 

_The Center of the Island—Ice, Desert, and Volcanoes—The

Bubble-Caves—A Dweller in the Desert—Grettir Stops the

Rider—Hall-mund Stronger than Grettir—Grettir Seeks Skapti’s

Advice—Grettir’s Night Fears—Grettir Builds a House_

 

 

The island of Iceland is one-third larger than Ireland, but then the

population is entirely confined to the coast. All the centre of the

island is desert and mountain. One mighty mass of mountain covered with

eternal snow and ice occupies the south of the island and approaches the

sea very closely in the south-east. Much of this is unexplored; it has

of recent years been traversed once, across the great Vatna-jokull, but

there are passes west of the Vatna. The mountain masses are broken into

three main masses. The vast Vatna-jokull is to the east, then comes a

pass, and next the circular Arnafells-jokull, then another pass, and

lastly the jumble of snow mountains that form the Ball-jokull and the

Lang-jokull, the Goatland and the Erick’s-jokull. North of the

Vatna-jokull is a vast region, as large as a big county, covered with

lava broken up into bristling spikes and deep clefts of glass-like rock,

which no one can possibly get across. In the midst of it, inaccessible,

rise the cones of volcanoes that have poured forth this sea of molten

rock. East and west of this mighty tract of broken-up lava come

extensive moors also quite desert, covered with inky-black sand which

has been erupted by volcanoes, burying and destroying what vegetation

there was. The extent of desert may be understood when you learn that

there are twenty thousand square miles of country perfectly barren and

uninhabitable, and only partially explored. There are but four thousand

square miles in Iceland that are inhabited; the rest of the country is a

chaos of ice, desert, and volcanoes. The great lava region mentioned

north of the Vatna covers one thousand one hundred and sixty square

miles, and the Vatna envelopes three thousand five hundred square miles

in ice. Now, here and there in this vast region there are certain

sheltered spots where some grass grows, valleys that have escaped the

overflow of the molten rock, or the thrust of the glacier; and during

the ninety years that Iceland had been inhabited, every now and then a

churl who got tired of service, or a murderer afraid of his life, ran

away into the centre of the island, and lived a precarious existence on

the wild birds, their eggs, and on the fish that abounded in the

countless lakes. Probably also they stole sheep, and carried them away

to the mysterious recesses of the desert where they had made for

themselves homes. They lived chiefly in caverns, of which there are

plenty thus formed:—When the lava poured as a fiery stream out of the

volcanoes, in cooling great bubbles were formed in it, sometimes these

bubbles exploded, blew the fragments into the air, which fell back and

made a mass of broken bits of rock like an exploded soda-water bottle;

but all the bubbles did not burst, and such hardened when the rock

became cool. These bubbles remain as great domed halls, and some of

them run deep underground, forming a succession of chambers. I have

explored one where a band of outlaws once lived, and found numbers of

sheep-bones frozen up in ice in the place where, after they had eaten

the mutton, they threw away what they could not devour. At the end of

the cave they had erected a wall so as to inclose a space as a store

chamber.

 

These men, living in the desert and rarely seen, were the subject of

many tales, and it was not clearly known who and what they really were,

whether altogether human, or half mountain-spirits. Imagination invested

them with supernatural powers.

 

When spring came and the snows melted, then Grettir left the farmhouse

where he had been last in hiding, and went into the desert, to find food

and shelter for himself.

 

One day he saw a man on horseback alone riding over a ridge of hill. He

was a very big man, and he led another horse that had bags of goods on

his back. The man wore a slouched hat so that his face could not

clearly be seen.

 

Grettir looked hard at the horse and the goods on the pack-saddle, and

thought he would probably find some of these latter serviceable to him,

and in his need he was not particular how he got those things which he

wanted. So he went up to the rider and peremptorily ordered him to

stand and deliver.

 

"Why should I give you things that are my own?" asked the stranger. "I

will sell some of my wares if you can pay for them."

 

"I have no money," answered Grettir, "what I want I take. You must have

heard that by report."

 

"Then I know with whom I have to deal; you are Grettir the outlaw, the

son of Asmund of Biarg." Thereat he struck spurs into his horse and

tried to ride past.

 

"Nay, nay! We part not like this," said Grettir, and he laid his hands

on the reins of the horse the stranger rode.

 

"You had better let go," said the mounted man.

 

"Nay, that I will not," answered Grettir.

 

Then the rider stooped and put his hands to the reins above those of

Grettir, between them and the bit, and he dragged them along, forcing

Grettir’s hands along the bridle to the end and then wrenched them out

of his grasp.

 

Grettir looked at his palms and saw that the skin had been torn in the

struggle. Then he found out that he had met with a man who was stronger

than himself.

 

"Give me your name," said he. "For, good faith! I have not encountered

a man like you."