grettir the outlaw 35

grettir the outlaw 35

Then one beautiful day the hag said to Thorbiorn, "Foster-son, the sea

is calm and the sky bright, what say you to our rowing over to Drangey

and stirring up the old strife with Grettir? I will go with you and

hear what he says, then I shall be able to judge what fate lies before

him, and I can death-doom him accordingly."

 

The Hook answered, "It is waste of labour going out to Drangey. I have

been there several times and never return better off than when I went."

 

"You promised to obey me without questioning," said the crone. "Follow

my advice and all will be well for you and ill for Grettir."

 

"I will do as you bid me, foster-mother," said Thorbiorn, "though I had

sworn not to go back to Drangey till I was sure I could work the bane of

Grettir."

 

"That man is not laid low hastily, and patience is needed; but his time

will come, and may be close at hand. What the end of this visit will be

I cannot say. It is hid from me, but I know very well that it will lead

to his or to your destruction."

 

Thorbiorn ran out a long boat, and entered it with twelve men. The hag

sat in the bows coiled up amongst rugs and wadmal. When they reached

the island, at once Grettir and Illugi ran to the ladder, and Thorbiorn

again asked if Grettir would come to his house for the winter.

 

Grettir made the same reply as before, "Do what you will, in this spot I

await my fate."

 

Now Thorbiorn saw that this expedition also was likely to be resultless,

and he became very angry. "I see," he said, "that I have to do with an

ill-conditioned churl, who does not know how to accept a good offer when

made. I shall not come here again with such an offer."

 

"That pleases me well," said Grettir, "for you and I are not like to

come to terms that will satisfy both."

 

At that moment the hag began to wriggle out of her wraps in the bows.

Grettir had not perceived her hitherto. Now she screamed out, "These

men may be strong, but their strength is ebbing. They may have had

luck, but luck has left. See what a difference there is between men.

Thorbiorn makes good offers, and such they blindly, foolishly reject.

Those who are blinded and cast away chances do not have chances come to

them again. And now Grettir"—she raised her withered arms over her

head—"I doom you to all ill, I doom you to loss of health, to loss of

wisdom and of foresight. I doom you to decline and to death. I doom

your blood to fester, and your brain to be clouded. I doom your marrow

to curdle and chill. Henceforth, so is my doom, all good things will

wane from you, and all evil things will wax and overwhelm you. So be

it." As she spoke a shudder ran over Grettir’s limbs, and he asked who

that imp was in the boat. Illugi told him he fancied it must be that

old heathen woman, the foster-mother of Thorbiorn Hook.

 

"Since the powers of evil are with our foes," said Grettir, "how may we

oppose them? Never before has anything so shaken me with presentiment

of evil as have the curses of this witch. But she shall have a reminder

of her visit to Drangey."

 

Thereupon he snatched up a large stone and threw it at the boat, and it

fell on the bundle of rags, in the midst of which lay the old hag. As

it struck there rose a wild shriek from the witch, for the stone had hit

and broken her leg.

 

"Brother!" exclaimed Illugi, "you should not have done this."

 

"Blame me not," answered Grettir gloomily. "It had been well had the

stone fallen on her head. But I trow the working of her curse is begun,

and what I have done has been because my understanding and wit are

already clouded."

 

On the return of Thorbiorn to the mainland the crone was put to bed, and

The Hook was less pleased than ever with his trip to the island. His

foster-mother, however, consoled him.

 

"Do not be discouraged," she said. "Now is come the turning-point of

Grettir’s fortunes, and his luck will leave him more and more as the

light dies away up to Yule. But the light dies and comes again. With

Grettir it will not be so, it will die, and die, till it goes out in

endless night."

 

"You are a confident woman, foster-mother," said Thorbiorn.

 

When a month had elapsed, the old woman was able to leave her bed, and

to limp across the room.

 

One day she asked to be led down to the beach. Thorbiorn gave her his

arm, and she had her crutch, and she hobbled down to where the water was

lapping on the shingle. And there, just washed up on the beach, lay a

log of drift-timber, just large enough for a man to carry upon his

shoulder. Then she gave command that the log should be rolled over and

over that she might examine each side. The log on one side seemed to

have been charred, and she sent to the house for a plane, and had the

burnt wood smoothed away.

 

When that was done she dismissed every one save her foster-son, and then

with a long knife she cut runes on the wood where it had been

planed—that is to say, words written in the peculiar characters made of

strokes which Odin was supposed to have invented. Then she cut herself

on the arm, and smeared the letters she had cut with her blood. After

that she rose and began to leap and dance, screaming a wild spell round

the log, making the most strange and uncouth contortions, and waving her

crutch in the air, making with it mysterious signs over the log.

Presently, when the incantation was over, she ordered the log to be

rolled back into the sea. The tide was now ebbing, and with the tide

the log went out to sea further and further from land till Thorbiorn saw

it no more.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XL.*

 

*HOW THE LOG CAME TO DRANGEY.*

 

 

_Food for the Winter—Cast up by the Sea—The Log comes back

again—The Worst is come—An ugly Wound—The Hag’s Revenge—Grettir

sings his Great Deeds—Presage of Evil_

 

 

In the meantime Grettir, Illugi, and the churl Glaum were on Drangey

catching fish and fowl for winter supplies. The fish in Iceland are

beaten hard with stones and then dried in the wind, that makes them like

leather; but it preserves them for a very long time, and they form the

staple of food, as the people have no corn, and consequently no bread.

They put butter on these dry fish, and tear them with their teeth. What

Grettir did with the fowl he caught was to pickle them with salt water

from the sea, and when the frost and snow came on then he would take

them out of pickle and freeze them. Now, the whole of the sheep had

been eaten some time ago, except the old mottled ram, which Grettir

could not find in his heart to kill; and, as may be supposed, he and his

brother suffered from want of change of food. Especially deficient were

they in any green food; and we know, though he did not, that the eating

of green food is a very essential element of health. He had nothing for

consumption but salted birds and dried fish—no milk, no bread, no

vegetables. Such a diet was certain to disorder his health.

 

The day after that on which the hag had charmed the piece of timber, the

two brothers were walking on the little strand to the west of the island

looking for drift-wood.

 

"Here is a fine beam!" exclaimed Illugi. "Help me to lift it on to my

shoulder, and I will carry it up the ladder."

 

Grettir spurned the log with his foot, saying, "I do not like the looks

of it, Little brother. Runes are cut on it, and what they portend I do

not know. There may be written there something that may bring ill. Who

can tell but this log may have been sent with ill wishes against us."

They set the log adrift, and Grettir warned his brother not to bring it

to their fire.

 

In the evening they returned to their cabin, and nothing was said about

the log to Glaum. Next day they found the same beam washed up not far

from the foot of the ladder. Grettir was dissatisfied, and again he

thrust it from the shore, saying that he hoped they had seen the last of

it, and that the stream and tide would catch it and waft it elsewhere.

And now the equinoctial gales began to rage. The fine Martinmas summer

was over. The weather changed to storm and rain; and so bad was it that

the three men remained indoors till their supply of firewood was

exhausted.

 

Then Grettir ordered the thrall to search the shore for fuel. Glaum

started up with an angry remonstrance that the weather was not such as a

dog should be turned out in, with unreason, not considering that a fire

was as necessary to him as to his master. He went to the ladder,

crawled down it, and found the same beam cast at its very foot.

 

Glad not to have to go far in his search, Glaum shouldered the log,

crept up the ladder, bore it to the hut, and throwing open the door,

cast it down in the midst.

 

Grettir jumped up, "Well done," said he, "you have been quick in your

quest."

 

"Now I have brought it, you must chop it up," said Glaum. "I have done

my part."

 

Grettir took his axe. The fire was low and wanted replenishing, and

without paying much attention to the log, he swung his axe and brought

it down on the log. But the wood was wet and greasy with sea-weed, and

the axe slipped, glanced off the beam, and cut into Grettir’s leg below

the knee, on the shin, with such force that it stuck in the bone.

 

Grettir looked at the beam; the fire leaped up, and by its light the

runic inscription on it was visible. Grettir at once saw evil. "The