Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland

by S. Baring-Gould

Then Grettir made a loop in the end of the rope, and put a stone through the loop, and threw the stone down, and the end of the rope went to the bottom of the gulf.

"How are you going down?" asked Stone.

"I shall dive," said Grettir.

Then he stripped, but girt on a short-sword, and so leaped off the cliff into the foss. The priest saw only the soles of his feet as he went into the water, and then saw no more.

Now, Grettir had gone in below the fall, and he dived and went under the curtain of water and came up near the rock. The whirlpool below the falls was so strong that he had a desperate struggle with the water before he could reach the rock.

When he rose, he saw that the water fell over a lip of rock, quite clear, and that in the face of the rock was a cavern, and that smoke issued from this cave, and mingling with the spray and foam passed away, and was not discerned beyond.

Grettir climbed over the stones into the cave, and there he saw a great fire flaming from amidst brands of drift-wood; and there was the Stream-churl seated there, a great Troll with a hideous face. When he saw Grettir he roared and jumped up, and caught a glaive that was near him, and smote at the newcomer. Grettir hewed back at him with his short-sword, and smote the handle of the glaive and broke it. Then the giant stretched back for a sword that hung up to a peg against the side of the cave, but as he was thus leaning back Grettir smote him across the breast, and cut through to the ribs, and gashed open his belly. The blood poured forth out of the cave and mingled with the stream. When the priest saw the bloody foam beneath the fall, he was so frightened that he ran away, for he made sure that Grettir was dead.

Grettir remained in the cave, standing across the giant, till he had killed him. Then he took up a flaming brand and searched the cave through. He found nothing more than dead men's bones, and these he put together into a bag, threw that over his shoulder, and went again into the water.

He rose beyond the foss and looked up, but could see nothing of the priest; so he caught the rope, and by means of that he swarmed up to the top of the cliff.

Then he sat down, and with a sharp knife he cut runes on a staff. And what he wrote was this: