CHAPTER XXX.
A MYSTERIOUS VALE.
The Dome of Snow—Cold Dale—A Fair Valley—The Mottled Ewe—With Thorir and his Daughters—The Stone on Broad-shield—Thorir's Cave
In the spring of 1024 Grettir went away from Fairwood Fell; for he had been there so long, and had preyed for such a time on the bonders of the marshes, that he himself saw that it would be best for him to remove into quite another part of the island. So he visited his friend Hallmund once more, under the ice of Ball-jokull, and Hallmund advised him where to go. He could not give him hospitality himself that winter, because his stock of goods was run so short that it would hardly suffice for his daughter and himself; but he told him of a valley unknown to anyone, save a friend of his called Thorir and himself. And he informed him how it was to be reached.
Now, as already said, there are passes in Iceland between the several blocks of ice mountains, and such a pass exists between Goatland-jokull and a curious domed snowy mountain called Ok. The pass is called the Cold Dale, because it lies for many hours ride between ice mountains, and under the precipitous Goatland-jokull, whose rocks are crowned with green ice that falls over incessantly in great avalanches. It is seven hours' ride from one blade of grass to another through that dale. I went through it on midsummer-day, and saw the bones of horses lying about that had died unable to get through; perhaps becoming lame or exhausted on the way.
Half through this long trough of the Cold Dale stands up a buttress of rock, or rather a sort of ness, projecting from Goatland-jokull, so precipitous that hardly any snow rests on it, and this is called the Half-way Fell.
Now, Hallmund told Grettir he must go through the Cold Dale till he reached the Half-way Fell, and there he must strike up over the snow and glaciers of Goatland-jokull, due south, and he would all at once drop into a valley known to few.
So Grettir went up the moor till he struck the White River, that flowed out of the Eagle Lakes he knew so well, and under the cliffs and icy crown of Erick's-jokull, then he climbed over broken trachyte rocks for several hundreds of feet, till he found himself in the Cold Dale, and along that he trudged till he had reached Half-way Fell, standing up like a wall as though to stop the pass. There he turned to the left, and as at this point Goatland is no longer precipitous, but slopes in a series of steps to the Cold Dale, he climbed up through the snow, a long and tedious ascent, till he stood on the neck of the mountain, and there he saw that the snow slopes fell away rapidly to the south, and he descended and soon beheld before him a valley in which were a great many boiling springs that threw up clouds of steam, and he saw also, what greatly pleased him, that there was rich and abundant grass in this valley. This is what the saga says: "The dale was long and somewhat narrow, locked up by glaciers all round, in such a manner that the ice walls overhung the dale. He scrambled down into it, as best he could, and there he saw fair hillsides grass-grown and set with bushes. Hot springs were there, and it appeared to him that it was the earth-fires which prevented the ice walls from closing in on the valley. A little river ran down the dale, with level banks. The sun rarely shone into the valley; but the number of sheep there could hardly be reckoned, they were so many; and nowhere had he seen any so fat and in such good condition."
Grettir did not see Thorir, Hallmund's friend, at first; so he built himself a hut of such wood as he could get, and with turf. He killed the sheep he wanted, and found that there was more meat on one of them than on two elsewhere.
The Saga says:—