The Story of Grettir the Strong | Page 3

him off the help of men, and he has to take to the
wilderness with a price upon his head; and now the other part of the
curse falls on him heavier, for ever after the struggle with the ghost he
sees horrible things in the dark, and cannot bear to be alone, and runs
all kinds of risks to avoid it; and so the years of his outlawry pass on.
From time to time, driven by need, and rage at his unmerited ill-fortune,
he takes to plundering those who cannot hold their own; at other times
he lives alone, and supports himself by fishing, and is twice nearly
brought to his end by hired assassins the while. Sometimes he dwells
with the friendly spirits of the land, and chiefly with Hallmund, his
friend, who saves his life in one of the desperate fights he is forced into.
But little by little all fall off from him; his friends durst harbour him no
more, or are slain. Hallmund comes to a tragic end; Grettir is driven
from his lairs one after the other, and makes up his mind to try, as a last
resource, to set himself down on the island of Drangey, which rises up
sheer from the midst of Skagafirth like a castle; he goes to his father's
house, and bids farewell to his mother, and sets off for Drangey in the
company of his youngest brother, Illugi, who will not leave him in this
pinch, and a losel called "Noise," a good joker (we are told), but a
slothful, untrustworthy poltroon. The three get out to Drangey, and
possess themselves of the live-stock on it, and for a while all goes well;

the land-owners who held the island in shares, despairing of ridding
themselves of the outlaw, give their shares or sell them to one
Thorbiorn Angle, a man of good house, but violent, unpopular, and
unscrupulous. This man, after trying the obvious ways of persuasion,
cajolery, and assassination, for getting the island into his hands, at last,
with the help of a certain hag, his foster-mother, has recourse to sorcery.
By means of her spells (as the story goes) Grettir wounds himself in the
leg in the third year of his sojourn at Drangey, and though the wound
speedily closes, in a week or two gangrene supervenes, and Grettir, at
last, lies nearly helpless, watched continually by his brother Illugi. The
losel, "Noise," now that the brothers can no more stir abroad, will not
take the trouble to pull up the ladders that lead from the top of the
island down to the beach; and, amidst all this, helped by a magic storm
the sorceress has raised, Thorbiorn Angle, with a band of men,
surprises the island, unroofs the hut of the brothers, and gains ingress
there, and after a short struggle (for Grettir is already a dying man)
slays the great outlaw and captures Illugi in spite of a gallant defence;
he, too, disdaining to make any terms with the murderers of his brother,
is slain, and Angle goes away exulting, after he had mutilated the body
of Grettir, with the head on which so great a price had been put, and the
sword which the dead man had borne.
But now that the mighty man was dead, and people were relieved of
their fear of him, the minds of men turned against him who had
overcome him in a way, according to their notions, so base and
unworthy, and Angle has no easy time of it; he fails to get the
head-money, and is himself brought to trial for sorcery and practising
heathen rites, and the 'nithings-deed' of slaying a man already dying,
and is banished from the land.
Now comes the part so necessary to the Icelandic tale of a hero, the
revenging of his death; Angle goes to Norway, and is thought highly of
for his deed by people who did not know the whole tale; but Thorstein
Dromund, an elder half-brother of Grettir, is a lord in that land, and
Angle, knowing of this, feels uneasy in Norway, and at last goes away
to Micklegarth (Constantinople), to take service with the Varangians:
Thorstein hears of this and follows him, and both are together at last in
Micklegarth, but neither knows the other: at last Angle betrays himself
by showing Grettir's sword, at a 'weapon-show' of the Varangians, and

Thorstein slays him then and there with the same weapon. Thorstein
alone in a strange land, with none to speak for him, is obliged to submit
to the laws of the country, and is thrown into a dungeon to perish of
hunger and wretchedness there. From this fate he is delivered by a great
lady of the city, called Spes, who afterwards falls in love