grettir the outlaw 32

grettir the outlaw 32

Then said Grettir, "Weep not, mother, for if we be set on with weapons

it will be said of thee that thou hadst men and not girls for thy

children. Live on well, and be hale."

 

So they parted. Grettir and Illugi went to their relatives and visited

them, never, however, staying long in any place, and so on by Swine

Lake, a long sheet of water in a shallow basin, to the Blend River. This

river is of the colour of milk and water, because it is so full of

undissolved snow, and milk and water is called Bland, _i.e._ Blend, in

Icelandic. Another river enters it that is called the Black Stream,

because of the dark colour of the water. Grettir turned up the valley

of the Black River and then over a pass by a pretty lake lying in a

mountain lap, down into a broad marshy valley in which are three or four

rivers, and boiling springs pouring forth clouds of steam on the

hill-slopes. The valley is commanded by a beautiful mountain peak,

called the Measuring Peak, because the natives thereabouts reckon

distances from it.

 

Grettir and Illugi went down this valley till they reached the sea, and

now there opened before them a glorious view of the fiord, extending out

north about forty miles, and from ten to fifteen miles across, between

mountains and precipitous cliffs. A little way back from the eastern

shore stood up the Unadals Jokull, crowned with perpetual snows and with

glaciers rolling down the sides, and on the west, close to the sea,

seeming to rise in a wall out of it and running up into fantastic peaks,

was the range of Tindastoll, famous for its cornelians and agates and

other precious stones. In the offing, fifteen miles out, right in the

midst of the fiord, stood up the isle of Drangey with sheer cliffs,

about which the sea perpetually danced and foamed.

 

Grettir and Illugi skirted the shore on the west. The wind was blowing

cold, and snow was driving before it, as they passed a farm. The farmer

stood in his door, and saw a great man stride by with an axe over his

shoulder, his hood thrown back, and his wild red hair blowing about in

the gale. "Verily," said the farmer, "that must be a strange fellow not

to cover his head with his hood in such weather as this." Near this

little farm the brothers stumbled upon a tall, thin man, dressed in rags

and with a very big head. They asked each other’s names, and the fellow

called himself Glaum. He was out of work, and he went along with the

brothers chatting, and telling them all the gossip of the neighbourhood.

Then Glaum asked if they were in want of a servant, and Grettir gladly

accepted him, and the man became thenceforth his constant attendant. But

the fellow was a sad boaster, and most people thought him both a fool

and a coward. He was not fond of work, and he spent his time strolling

about the country picking up and retailing news.

 

Grettir and his brother and Glaum reached a farm called Reykir as the

day closed in, where was a hot spring in the farm paddock. The farmer’s

name was Thorwald; and Grettir asked him to put him across in a boat to

Drangey. Thorwald shook his head and said, "I shall get into trouble

with those who have rights of pasturage on the island. I had rather

not."

 

Then Grettir offered him a bag of silver which his mother had given him,

and at the sight of this, Thorwald raised his eyebrows and thought that

he might perhaps do what was asked. The distance was just five miles.

 

So on a moonshiny night Thorwald got three of his churls and they rowed

Grettir and the two who went with him over. On reaching his destination

Grettir was well pleased with the spot, for it was covered with a

profusion of grass, and the sides were so precipitous that it seemed a

sheer impossibility for anyone to ascend it without the aid of the

rope-ladder that hung from strong staples at the summit. In summer the

place would swarm with sea-birds, and at the time there were eighty

sheep left on the island for fattening.

 

A good many farmers had rights of pasturage on the island. Hialti of

Hof was one, whose brother’s name was Thorbiorn Hook, of whom more

hereafter. Another was Haldor, who lived at Head-strand; he had married

the sister of these brothers. Biorn, Eric, and Tongue-stone were the

names of three others.

 

Thorbiorn Hook was a hard-headed, ill-disposed fellow. His father had

married a second time, and there was no love lost between the stepmother

and Thorbiorn. It is said that one day as The Hook was sitting at

draughts, she passed, and looking over his shoulder laughed, because he

had made a bad move. Thorbiorn Hook thereupon said something abusive and

insulting; this so enraged her that she snatched up a draught-man, and

pressing it against his eye-socket, drove the eyeball out. He started

to his feet, and with the draught-board struck her over the head such a

blow that she took to her bed, and died of the injury. The Hook now

went from bad to worse, and leaving home settled at Woodwick on the

fiord, a small farm. It will be understood from this story that he was

a violent and brutal fellow, and that, indeed, the life in his father’s

house had not been of an orderly description.

 

As many as twenty farmers claimed rights to turn out their sheep on

Drangey in summer. The way they managed it is the way still employed by

their successors. They take the sheep out in boats, and then put them

over their shoulders, with the feet tied under their chins, and so they

climb the rope-ladder, carrying the sheep up on their backs. Though all

these farmers claimed rights on Drangey, The Hook and his brother had

the largest share, that is to say, the right to turn out more sheep than

the rest.

 

Now, about the time of the winter solstice, that is just before Yule,

the bonders made ready to visit the island, and bring home their sheep

for slaughtering for the Christmas feasting. They rowed out in a large

boat, and on nearing the island were much surprised to see figures

moving on top of the cliffs. How anyone had got there without their

knowledge puzzled them, for Thorwald had kept his counsel, and told no

one what he had done for Grettir. They pulled hard for the

landing-place, where hung the ladder, but Grettir drew it up before they

landed.

 

The bonders shouted to know who were on the crags, and Grettir, looking

over, told his name and those of his companions. The farmers then asked

how he had got there? who had put him across?

 

Grettir answered, "If you very much wish to know, it was not one of you

below now speaking to us. It was someone else, who had a good boat and

a pair of lusty arms."

 

"Let us fetch our sheep away," called the bonders, "then you come to

land with us. We will not make you pay for the sheep you have eaten,

and we will do you no harm."

 

"Well offered," answered Grettir; "but he who takes keeps hold; and a

bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Believe me, I will not leave

this island till the time of my outlawry is expired, unless I be carried

from it dead."

 

The bonders were silenced, it seemed to them that they had got an ugly

customer on Drangey, to get rid of whom would be no easy matter; so they

rowed home, very ill-satisfied with the result of their expedition.

 

The news spread like wildfire, and was talked about all through the

neighbourhood. Thorir of Garth was the more embittered, because he

could see no way in which Grettir could be reached and overmastered in

this inaccessible spot.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XXXVI.*

 

*OF GRETTIR ON HERON-NESS.*

 

 

_Grettir goes to Heron-ness—At the Games—The Hook’s

Challenge—Amongst Strangers—The Oath of Safe-conduct—An old

Formula—A Surprise for the Bonders—Regretting the Oath—The two

Brothers—Grettir returns to Drangey_

 

 

Winter passed, and at the beginning of summer the whole district met at

an assize held on the Herons’-ness, a headland in the Skaga-firth,

between the rivers that discharge into the fiord. It is, in fact, the

seaward point of a large island in the delta of the river that divides

about eight miles higher up, inland. The gathering was thronged, and

the litigations and merry-makings made the assize last over many days.

Grettir guessed what was going on by seeing a number of boats pass to

the head of the fiord. He became restless, and at last announced to his

brother that he intended being present at the assize, cost what it

might. Illugi thought it was sheer madness, but Grettir was resolute.

He begged his brother and Glaum to watch the ladder and await his

return.

 

Now, Grettir was on very good terms with the farmer at Reykir, and with

some others on that side of the firth, and they were not unwilling to

help him. Sometimes his mother sent things to the brothers that she

thought they would need, and then there were not wanting men to take

these over to the island. So Grettir got put across by his friend

Thorwald to the mainland, and he borrowed of him a set of old clothes,

and thus attired he went along the coast boldly to Heron-ness. He had

on a fur cap, which was drawn closely over his eyes, and concealed his

face, so that no one might recognize him. Now, in parts of Iceland, the

flies are such torments that men have to wear literally cloth helmets,

with only nose and eyes showing, the cloth fitting tight to the head,

and round over the ears and neck, exactly like a helmet, or a German

knitted sledging cap. When I was in Iceland, when the flies were

troublesome, I put my head into a butterfly net, and buckled it round my

neck tightly with a leather strap. Now, Grettir’s cap was something

like those I have described, and no one was surprised at his wearing it,

as the whole of that valley is one vast marsh, and is infested with

flies that blacken the air and madden men and beasts.

 

Grettir thus attired sauntered between the booths erected on the

headland, till he reached the spot where games were going on.

 

Now, Hialti and Thorbiorn Hook were the chief men in these sports. Hook

was specially noisy and boisterous, and drove men together to the