Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland

by S. Baring-Gould

IN THE DESERT.

The Center of the Island—Ice, Desert, and Volcanoes—The Bubble-Caves—A Dweller in the Desert—Grettir Stops the Rider—Hall-mund Stronger than Grettir—Grettir Seeks Skapti's Advice—Grettir's Night Fears—Grettir Builds a House

The island of Iceland is one-third larger than Ireland, but then the population is entirely confined to the coast. All the centre of the island is desert and mountain. One mighty mass of mountain covered with eternal snow and ice occupies the south of the island and approaches the sea very closely in the south-east. Much of this is unexplored; it has of recent years been traversed once, across the great Vatna-jokull, but there are passes west of the Vatna. The mountain masses are broken into three main masses. The vast Vatna-jokull is to the east, then comes a pass, and next the circular Arnafells-jokull, then another pass, and lastly the jumble of snow mountains that form the Ball-jokull and the Lang-jokull, the Goatland and the Erick's-jokull. North of the Vatna-jokull is a vast region, as large as a big county, covered with lava broken up into bristling spikes and deep clefts of glass-like rock, which no one can possibly get across. In the midst of it, inaccessible, rise the cones of volcanoes that have poured forth this sea of molten rock. East and west of this mighty tract of broken-up lava come extensive moors also quite desert, covered with inky-black sand which has been erupted by volcanoes, burying and destroying what vegetation there was. The extent of desert may be understood when you learn that there are twenty thousand square miles of country perfectly barren and uninhabitable, and only partially explored. There are but four thousand square miles in Iceland that are inhabited; the rest of the country is a chaos of ice, desert, and volcanoes. The great lava region mentioned north of the Vatna covers one thousand one hundred and sixty square miles, and the Vatna envelopes three thousand five hundred square miles in ice. Now, here and there in this vast region there are certain sheltered spots where some grass grows, valleys that have escaped the overflow of the molten rock, or the thrust of the glacier; and during the ninety years that Iceland had been inhabited, every now and then a churl who got tired of service, or a murderer afraid of his life, ran away into the centre of the island, and lived a precarious existence on the wild birds, their eggs, and on the fish that abounded in the countless lakes. Probably also they stole sheep, and carried them away to the mysterious recesses of the desert where they had made for themselves homes. They lived chiefly in caverns, of which there are plenty thus formed:—When the lava poured as a fiery stream out of the volcanoes, in cooling great bubbles were formed in it, sometimes these bubbles exploded, blew the fragments into the air, which fell back and made a mass of broken bits of rock like an exploded soda-water bottle; but all the bubbles did not burst, and such hardened when the rock became cool. These bubbles remain as great domed halls, and some of them run deep underground, forming a succession of chambers. I have explored one where a band of outlaws once lived, and found numbers of sheep-bones frozen up in ice in the place where, after they had eaten the mutton, they threw away what they could not devour. At the end of the cave they had erected a wall so as to inclose a space as a store chamber.

These men, living in the desert and rarely seen, were the subject of many tales, and it was not clearly known who and what they really were, whether altogether human, or half mountain-spirits. Imagination invested them with supernatural powers.

When spring came and the snows melted, then Grettir left the farmhouse where he had been last in hiding, and went into the desert, to find food and shelter for himself.

One day he saw a man on horseback alone riding over a ridge of hill. He was a very big man, and he led another horse that had bags of goods on his back. The man wore a slouched hat so that his face could not clearly be seen.

Grettir looked hard at the horse and the goods on the pack-saddle, and thought he would probably find some of these latter serviceable to him, and in his need he was not particular how he got those things which he wanted. So he went up to the rider and peremptorily ordered him to stand and deliver.

"Why should I give you things that are my own?" asked the stranger. "I will sell some of my wares if you can pay for them."

"I have no money," answered Grettir, "what I want I take. You must have heard that by report."

"Then I know with whom I have to deal; you are Grettir the outlaw, the son of Asmund of Biarg." Thereat he struck spurs into his horse and tried to ride past.