Illugi will go to Drangey—Asdis gives Consent—Asdis prophesies Woe—Within Sight of Drangey—Glaum becomes Grettir's Servant—Thorwald rows Grettir to Drangey—Thorbiorn Hook—The Bonders visit the Island—Grettir in Possession—An Inaccessible Spot
When summer was now over, and the first snow of winter began to fall, when the days were rapidly shortening, and the sun had gone out of the north to the south, where it began to move in a rapidly narrowing arc, Grettir returned to Biarg and remained there a while. "But," says the saga, "so great grew his fear in the dark that he durst go nowhere as soon as dusk set in." We can see that the many years strain on his nerves had broken them. Hunted about as a wild beast, always forced to be on his guard, never able to sleep without fear of being murdered in his sleep, the trial had told on him. This was now the winter of 1028. He was aged but thirty-one; his strength of body was not abated, only his nervous force. He had been in outlawry altogether fifteen years, three for the slaying of Skeggi, then he had been outlawed by King Olaf in 1016. On his return to Iceland he had been outlawed in 1017; this was the eleventh year of his outlawry at the suit of Thorir of Garth, an outlawry not only unjust, but according to general opinion illegal, because he had been tried and sentenced in his absence, and without any witnesses having been called to establish his guilt—condemned on hearsay evidence, and he never allowed to defend himself.
Now Illugi, Grettir's sole surviving brother, was aged fifteen, and was a very handsome, honest-looking boy.
"Grettir," said he, "you know what I said. I will go with you to Drangey, if you will take me. I know not that I will be of much help to you, but this I know, that I will be ever true to you, and will never run from you so long as you stand up. Besides, I shall like to be with you, for here at home we are ever in anxiety for news about you, always fearing the worst; but if I am at your side, I shall know how you fare."
"I would rather have you with me than anyone else," answered Grettir. "But I cannot take you unless our mother consent."
Then said Asdis, "Now I can see that I have the choice of evils. I can ill spare Illugi; yet I know your trouble, Grettir, and that something must be done for you. It grieves me, my sons, to see you both leave me; yet I will not withhold my youngest from you, Grettir. It is right that brother should help brother."
That rejoiced Illugi. Then Asdis gave her sons what things she thought they might want on the island, and they made them ready to depart.
She led them outside the farm inclosure, and then she took farewell of them, saying, "My two sons! There you depart from me, and I dreamed last night that you left me for ever, and would fall together. What is fated none may fly from. Never shall I see you again, either of you. Be it so, that one fate overtake you both. In my dream I saw your bones whitening on Drangey. Be careful and watchful. My dreams have troubled me greatly. Above all beware of witchcraft. None can cope with the craft of the old."
When she had said this she wept sore.
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.