Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland

by S. Baring-Gould

This was true. Onund had not received Eric's offer graciously; but he now accepted it, and he called the second bay he saw—that into which he had descended over snow—Coldback, and that remains the name to this day.

Eric behaved very nobly; he gave up to Onund the whole tract of land from the Horn-headland to the limit where Biarni's land began. He received the whole of Reykjafiord, Fishless Creek, and Coldback Bay.

Then Onund built himself a house at Coldback; and there was no difficulty about wood, for the Gulfstream flowed up past the great north-west promontory of Iceland, curled round into Hunafloi, and deposited a quantity of American timber as drift all along that coast. Indeed, the drift was so abundant that neither Eric nor Onund made any agreement about it. Now, as it happened in the sequel, this was an oversight.

Onund prospered at Coldback, and even set up for himself a second farm at the head of the firth to the north, called Reykja-firth, from the boiling springs that puffed and bubbled up in the sea at the entrance; and a hot spring is in Icelandic—Reykr.

Now, a few years after Onund had settled in Iceland, his good wife Asa died. He had by her two sons—the elder was called Thorgeir, and the younger Ufeig Grettir. After a while Onund went courting a woman called Thordis, in Middle-firth, and he married her, and by her had a son called Thorgrim; he grew to be a big man, very strong, wise, and a capital man at husbandry. When he was twenty-five years old his hair grew gray, and so he went by the name of Thorgrim Grizzle-pate, and he was the grandfather of Grettir. After the death of Onund, his widow married, as already said, Audun of Willowdale, and their son was Asgeir, the father of Grettir's cousin Audun, with whom he had that affray on the ice, and then with the bottle of curds.

When Onund was a very old man, then he died in his bed, and he was buried under a great mound, which you may see at Coldback if you go there. It is called Old Treefoot's cairn. When he was dead, then Thorgrim Grizzlepate and his half-brothers, Thorgeir and Ufeig Grettir, lived together on the best of terms at Coldback, and managed the property between them.

In time Eric Trap of Arness died also, and left his lands to his son Flossi. He had remained in friendship with Onund all his life; but Flossi, his son, was a grasping man, and he was often heard to grumble about the Coldback family, and say that they were squatters on his father's land, and had no title to show for the land they held. Thorgrim Grizzlepate and his half-brothers did not wish to quarrel with Flossi, so they kept out of his company; and when there were sports of hurling, and wrestling, and horse-fighting, strayed away, so as not to be involved in a quarrel with him.

Now, Thorgeir was the eldest of the three brothers at Coldback, and he was mightily fond of fishing. This was known to Flossi, and he made a plot for slaying him; for he was envious of the brothers, and wanted to get back all their lands into his own possession. He had got a house-churl called Finn, and he and Finn had some talk together. The end of this talk was that Finn started secretly for Coldback armed with a hatchet, and he hid himself in the boat-house at Coldback.

Early in the morning Thorgeir got ready to go out fishing, for the weather was good, the sea calm and was alive with fish. His nets were in the boat, and before sunrise he left his bed and dressed, and went to the boat-house to start on his excursion. He had not the smallest suspicion of mischief, and as he was like to be on the water for a long time, he flung a great leather bottle of curds over his back. As already said, these leather bottles were no other than the hides of goats or sheep, sewn up and converted into receptacles for liquid.

So Thorgeir went to the boat-house with the bottle of curd over his back, opened the door, and went in. He did not look round, he had no suspicion of evil, and he did not see Finn lurking in the dark corner. It was, moreover, very dark in the boat-house. Thorgeir stooped to get hold of the boat and thrust her out, when all at once out from the dark corner leaped the churl, and brought the axe down on Thorgeir's back. The blow made the bottle squeak, and all the curds gushed out. That was enough for Finn. He made sure he had killed Thorgeir, so he ran away as fast as he could back to Arness, burst into the house, and shouted to his master "I have killed him! I have killed him! And he squeaked! he squeaked!"