Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland

by S. Baring-Gould

Atli took no notice of the loss of his house-churl; he desired peace, and not a stirring afresh of the fires of discord. To his peaceable behaviour it was doubtless due that the quarrel with Kormak came to an end. But the vexation felt by Grettir against Oxmain for his meddlesomeness, and against Slow-coach for his gibes, rankled in his breast.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW GRETTIR AND AUDUN MADE FRIENDS.

Audun's Pedigree—His relation to Grettir—Grettir's-heaves—In Willowdale—The Place called Tongue—A very strange Tale

Grettir remained through the autumn at Biarg, after the skirmish at the Neck, till September, and then he thought he would ride away east and see Audun again, with whom he had had that little ruffle that was almost a quarrel, and which was fortunately interrupted by the entrance of Bard. Audun was a cousin, though not a near one, and Grettir had no desire that any bad blood should exist between kinsfolk. Audun belonged to what was called the Madpate family; for it had had in it at least two who had been so odd in their ways that folk said they were not quite right in their minds. The relationship will easily be understood by a look at the pedigree. It will be remembered that old Onund Treefoot, who had settled in Iceland, had to wife secondly Thordis, an Icelandic woman, and his son by her was Thorgrim Grizzlepate, and this Thorgrim bought the estate and house of Biarg about the year 935. Onund Treefoot died in or about 920, and then his widow Thordis married again a man called Audun Skokull, and they had a son who was called Asgeir, who settled in Willowdale, and either went off his head or proved so queer in his ways that folks called him Madpate. This Madpate married and had a son Audun, and a daughter Thurid who married away west into a very good family; and she had a son called Thorstein Kuggson, of whom we shall hear more presently. Audun of Willowdale's son was Madpate the Second, and the lad Audun who wrestled with Grettir and burst the bottle of curds was the son of this Madpate the Second. Consequently the relationship to Grettir was through Grettir's great-grandmother, and Audun belonged to a generation younger than that of Grettir, because Grettir was the son of Asmund's old age. Moreover, Asmund's father Thorgrim had married somewhat late in life, whereas all the Madpate family had dashed into marriage at a very early age. Thus it came about that Grettir's great-grandmother was Audun's great-great-grandmother, and that, nevertheless, Audun was somewhat older than Grettir.

Grettir rode straight up over the hill behind his house. Now this hill like the Neck, already described, is rather curious, for on it are a number of rocks that have been deposited by glaciers, and not only so, but they have been dragged along by ice, scratching the rocks over which they were driven forward, and so these beds of rock are rubbed and scored with lines made by the stones forced over them by ice. Above Biarg there is one large stone that has scratched a deep furrow in the bed of rock and then has stopped at the end of the furrow it had itself scored. This remarkable phenomenon tells us of a time when the whole of the centre of Iceland was covered with glaciers, like the centre of Greenland now. These glaciers slided down the slopes of the hills, and were thrust along to the sea, where they broke off and floated away as icebergs.

Nowadays folk in Iceland do not understand these odd stones perched in queer places, which were deposited by the ancient glaciers, and they call them Grettir-taks or Grettir's-heaves. So the farmer at Biarg told me that the curious stone at the end of the furrow in the bed of rock on top of the hill was a Grettir-tak; it had been rubbed along the rock and left where it stands by Grettir. But I knew better. I knew that it was put there by an ancient glacier ages before Grettir was born, and before Iceland was discovered by the Norsemen. I have no doubt that in Grettir's time this stone was said to have been put there by some troll. Afterwards, when people ceased to believe in trolls, they said it was put there by Grettir.

Grettir's ride led him by a pretty little blue lake that lies folded in between high hills and has a stream flowing from it into a very large lake near Hop. But he did not follow the stream down; he crossed another hill, not very steep and high, and reached his cousin's house at Audun stead in Willowdale. Now this valley took its name from the woods of willows that grew in it when first settled, but at the present day none remain; all have in course of time been burnt for fuel, and except for scanty grass the Willowdale is very dreary-looking. We may be sure that Iceland presented a much more smiling and green appearance eight hundred or a thousand years ago than it does at present.

When Grettir came to Willowdale, Audun received him in a friendly manner, and Grettir made him a present of a handsome axe he had. He remained with him some little while, and they talked over old tales of Onund Treefoot and his doings, and every shadow of rivalry and anger disappeared, so that they parted at length in the best of tempers and as true and affectionate cousins.

Audun would have desired to keep Grettir there longer, but Grettir would not stay. He desired to get on to the head of Waterdale, where lived an uncle of his called Jokull, his mother's brother, at a place called Tongue.