Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland

by S. Baring-Gould

Then Thorkel Mani rode home, carrying the baby in his arms; and he called it by his own name, Thorkel; but to distinguish it from himself, it was given the nickname Krafla, which means to rumple, because the babe had rumpled up the kerchief, so as to let its cries be heard. So the child grew up, and kept the name through life of Thorkel Rumple. This Thorkel became a very great man, and Godi, or magistrate, of the Waterdale; and, as I have said, he was the first man to become a Christian, when missionaries of the gospel came to Iceland.

Very soon after Grettir's birth Christianity became general, and in the year 1000 was sanctioned by law; but there were few Christian priests in the land, so that the knowledge of the truth had not spread much, and taken hold and transformed men's lives. Thorkel Rumple was now very old. He was the bosom friend of Asmund, and every year when in the spring he rode to the great assizes at Thingvalla, he always halted at least one night at Biarg. Not only were Asmund and he men of like minds, and friends, but they were also connected. In the spring of the year 1011, Thorkel arrived as usual at Biarg, attended by a great many men, and he was most warmly received by Asmund and his wife. He remained with them three nights, and he and they fell a-talking about the prospects of the two young men, Atli and Grettir. Asmund told his kinsman that Atli was a quiet, amiable fellow, now at man's estate, and likely to prove a good farmer; a man who would worthily succeed him at Biarg when he died, and keep the honour of the family untarnished, and would enlarge the estate.

"Ah! I see," said Thorkel. "A useful man, good and respectable, like yourself. But what about Grettir?"

Asmund hesitated a moment before answering; but presently he said, "I hardly know what to say of him. He is unruly, sullen, makes no friends, and he has been a constant cause of vexation to me."

Thorkel answered, "That is a bad prospect; however, let him come with me to Thingvalla, and I shall be able to see on the journey of what stuff he is made."

To this Asmund agreed; and right glad was Grettir to think he was to go to the great law-gathering.

Thorkel had sixty men with him, and he rode in some state; for, as already said, he was a great man. The way led over the great desolate waste, called the Two-days-ride; but as on this expanse there were few halting-places, the grass most scanty, and not sufficient to allow of a stay, the party rode across it down to the settled lands nearer the coast as quickly as they could, and reached Fleet-tongue in time to sleep; so they took the bridles off their horses, and let them graze with their saddles on. Their road had lain among the lakes, from which issued the rivers that united above Biarg. In each lake floated a pair of swans. Often they heard the loud hoarse cry of the great northern diver; but there was hardly any grass, for the moor lies high, is swept by the icy blasts from the glacier mountains to the south, and is made up of black sand. Before them all day had stood towering into the sky the Eyreksjokull, a mountain with perfectly precipitous sides of black basalt, domed over with glittering ice. It resembles an immense bridecake. At one place this mountain in former times had gaped, and poured forth a fiery stream of lava that ran to the lakes, and for a while converted them to steam. One can still see whence this great fiery river issued from the mountain. Little did Grettir think then as he passed under it, a boy of fourteen, that, for the three most lonely, wretched years of his life, that great glacier-crowned mountain was to be the one object on which his eye would rest.

The men were all very tired after their long ride, and they slept till late next morning, lying about on the scant herbage, around a fire made of the roots of trailing willows that they had dug out of the sand.

When they awoke many of the horses had strayed, and some had rolled in the sand, burst their girths and shaken off their saddles. But they could not have gone any great distance, for they were all hobbled. In Iceland thick woollen ropes are put round the legs of the horses, below the hocks, and twisted together into a knot with a knuckle-bone. This serves as a secure hobble, and the wool being soft does not gall the skin.

It was customary in those days for every one to take his own provisions with him, and most of those who went to the great assize carried meal-bags athwart their saddles. Grettir found his horse at last, but not his meal-bag, which had come off, and was lost; for the saddle was turned under the belly of his cob.