The Story of Grettir the Strong | Page 2

being
understood); furthermore, Landnáma bók (landnáma, gen. pl. neut.) the
book of land settlings, becomes Landnáma (fem. sing. regularly
declined, bók being understood); lastly, Sturlunga saga, the Saga of the
mighty family of the Sturlungs, becomes Sturlunga in the same
manner.]
As some may like to know what they are going to read about before
venturing on beginning the book, we will now give a short outline of
our Saga.
The first thirteen chapters (which sometimes are met with separately in
the Icelandic as the Saga of Onund Treefoot), we have considered as an
introduction to the story, and have accordingly distinguished them from
the main body of the book. They relate the doings of Grettir's ancestors
in Norway, in the lands West over the Sea and in Iceland, and are
interesting and in many points necessary for the understanding of the
subsequent story; one of these we note here for the reader's
convenience, viz. the consanguinity of Grettir and King Olaf the

Saint;[3] for it adds strongly to the significance of the King's refusal to
entertain Grettir at his court, or to go further into the case of the murder
he was falsely accused of.
[Footnote 3:
Onund Treefoot brother to Gudbiorg | | Thorgrim Greypate Gudbrand | |
Asmund the Greyhaired Asta (mother of) | | Grettir the Strong. Olaf the
Saint.]
The genealogies of this part of the work agree closely with those of the
Landnáma-bók, and of the other most reliable Sagas.
After this comes the birth of Grettir, and anecdotes (one at least
sufficiently monstrous) of his unruly childhood; then our hero kills his
first man by misadventure, and must leave Iceland; wrecked on an isle
off Norway, he is taken in there by a lord of that land, and there works
the deed that makes him a famous man; the slaying of the villainous
bearserks, namely, who would else have made wreck of the honour and
goods of Grettir's host in his absence; this great deed, we should say, is
prefaced by Grettir's first dealings with the supernatural, which
characterise this Saga, and throw a strange light on the more ordinary
matters throughout. The slaying of the bearserks is followed by a feud
which Grettir has on his hands for the slaying of a braggart who
insulted him past bearing, and so great the feud grows that Grettir at
last finds himself at enmity with Earl Svein, the ruler of Norway, and,
delivered from death by his friends, yet has to leave the land and betake
himself to Iceland again. Coming back there, and finding himself a man
of great fame, and hungry, for more still, he tries to measure himself
against the greatest men in the land, but nothing comes of these trials,
for he is being reserved for a greater deed than the dealing with mere
men; his enemy is Glam the thrall; the revenant of a strange, unearthly
man who was himself killed by an evil spirit; Grettir contends with, and
slays, this monster, whose dying curse on him is the turning-point of
the story.
All seems fair for our hero, his last deed has made him the foremost
man in Iceland, and news now coming out of Olaf the Saint, his relative,
being King of Norway, he goes thither to get honour at his hands; but
Glam's curse works; Grettir gains a powerful enemy by slaying an
insulting braggart just as he was going on ship-board; and on the
voyage it falls out that in striving to save the life of his shipmates by a

desperate action, he gets the reputation of having destroyed the sons of
a powerful Icelander, Thorir of Garth, with their fellows. This evil
report clings to him when he lands in Norway; and all people, including
the King from whom he hoped so much, look coldly on him. Now he
offers to free himself from the false charge by the ordeal of bearing hot
iron; the King assents, and all is ready; but Glam is busy, and some
strange appearance in the church, where the ordeal is to be, brings all to
nothing; and the foreseeing Olaf refuses to take Grettir into his court,
because of his ill-luck. So he goes to his brother, Thorstein Dromund,
for a while, and then goes back to Iceland. But there, too, his ill-luck
had been at work, and when he lands he hears three pieces of bad news
at once; his father is dead; his eldest brother, Atli, is slain and unatoned;
and he himself has been made an outlaw, by Thorir of Garth, for a deed
he has never done.
He avenges his brother, and seeks here and there harbour from his
friends, but his foes are too strong for him, or some unlucky turn of fate
always pushes