Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland

by S. Baring-Gould

By the Boiling Spring—Grettir knocks the Nail from his Spear—Oxmain places his Son in Ambush—The Fight with Oxmain—Grettir's Spear-head—The Law concerning Manslaying—A Rising Black Cloud

One fine day, soon after his return, Grettir mounted a horse, and without an attendant rode over the hill to the Ramsfirth, and came down to Thorod's-stead. This is still a good farm, the best on the fiord, and it is by far the best built pile of buildings thereabouts. It faces the south and is banked up with turf to the north, to shelter it against the cold and furious gales from the Polar Sea. The soil is comparatively rich there, and there are tracts of good grass land on the slope of the hill by the side of the inlet of sea. The farm buildings consists at present of a set of wooden gable ends painted red, and the roofs are all of turf, where the buttercups grow and shine luxuriantly.

Grettir rode up to the farmhouse, about noon, and knocked at the door. Some women came out and welcomed him; they did not know who he was, or they would have been more sparing in their welcome. He asked after Thorbiorn, and was told that he was gone to the meadow, a little way further down the firth, where he had gone to bind hay, and that he had taken with him his son, called Arnor, who was a boy of sixteen.

When Grettir heard this, he said farewell to the women, and turned his horse's head to ride down the fiord towards a boiling spring that bubbles up out of the rock, throwing up a cloud of steam, and running in a scalding rill into the sea. Now the rock is perhaps warm there, or the warm water helps vegetation; certain it is that thereabouts the grass grows thickly, and there it was that Thorbiorn was making his bundles of hay. As Grettir rode along near the water, below the field, Thorbiorn saw him. He had just made up one bundle of hay, and he was engaged on another. He had set his shield and sword against the load, and his lad Arnor had a hand-axe beside him.

Thorbiorn looked hard at Grettir as he came along, and he said to the boy: "There is a fellow riding this way. I wonder who he is, and whether he wants us. Leave tying up the hay, and let us find out what his errand is."

Then Grettir leaped off his horse; he had a helmet on his head, and was girt with the short sword, and he bore a great spear in his hand that had a long sharp blade but no barbs. The socket was inlaid with silver, and a nail went through the socket fastening it on to the staff of the spear. He sat down on a stone, and knocked the nail out. His reason was that he intended to throw the spear at Thorbiorn, and if he missed him, he thought the spear-head and the haft would come apart, and would be of no use to Thorbiorn to fling back at him.

Oxmain said to his son: "I verily believe that is Grettir, Asmund's son, he is so big; I know no one else so big. He has got occasion enough against us, and if he is come here it is not with peaceable intentions. Now we must manage cunningly. I do not know that he has seen you; so you hide behind the bundle of hay, and lie hid till you see him engaged with me. Then you steal up noiselessly behind with your axe, and strike him one blow with all your might between the shoulder-blades. When I see you coming up, I will fight the more furiously so as to draw off his attention, that he may not be able to look round. Have no fear, he cannot hurt you, as his back will be turned to you. Get close enough to make sure, and you will kill him with one blow."

Now Grettir came uphill into the field, and when he came within a spear-throw of them, he cast his spear at Thorbiorn; but the head was looser on the shaft than he had expected it would be, and it became detached in its flight, and fell off and dropped into a marshy place and sank, and the shaft flew on but a little way and then fell harmlessly to the ground.

Then Thorbiorn took his shield, put it before him, drew his sword and ran against Grettir and engaged him. Grettir had, as already said, the short sword that he had taken out of the barrow, and with that he warded off the blows of Thorbiorn and smote at him. Oxmain was a very strong man, and his shield was covered with well-tanned hide stretched over oak, and the blade of Grettir fell on it, hacked into it, and sometimes caught so that he could not at once withdraw it. Thorbiorn now began to deal more furious blows. Now just as Grettir was wrenching his sword away from the shield, into which it had bitten deep, he saw someone close behind him with an axe raised. Instantly he tore out his sword and smote back over his head to protect his back from his assailant behind, and the blow came on Arnor just as he was on the point of driving his axe in between the shoulders of Grettir, so that he staggered back, mortally wounded. Thorbiorn, whose eye was on his son, retreated a step, lost his presence of mind for a moment, and thereupon down came Grettir's sword on his shield and split it in half. Grettir pursued his advantage, pressed on him, and struck him down at his feet, dead at a blow.

Then he went in search of his silver-inlaid spear-head, but could not find it. So he mounted his horse again, rode on to the nearest farmhouse, and there told what he had done. Many, many years after, about 1250, the spear-head was found in the marsh. When I was in Iceland I also obtained a very similar spear-head, only not silver-inlaid, that was found in the volcanic sand; it had probably been lost in a very similar manner.