"There was one ewe there, brown mottled, with a lamb, and she was a beauty. Grettir killed the lamb, and took three stone of suet off it, the meat was some of the best he had ever eaten. But when the mottled ewe missed her lamb, she went up on Grettir's hut every night, and bleated so plaintively as to trouble his sleep, and made Grettir quite troubled that he had killed her lamb."
Now Grettir noticed that at evening the sheep ran in one direction, and once or twice he heard a call; so he went after the sheep one evening, and was led by them to the hut where Thorir dwelt. He was a strange man, who had spent so many years away from the society of his fellow-men as not to care any more to meet them, so he did not welcome Grettir very warmly. However he had three daughters, and they were glad to have someone to talk to, and as the winter crept on Thorir himself became more amiable, and so the winter did not pass as drearily as Grettir had feared it would. He sang his songs and related stories, and the party played draughts with knuckle-bones of sheep.
When spring came, however, he was fain to go; and he did not leave by the way he came, but followed the little river, and it led him out between rock and glaciers into a piece of desert, covered with lava beds that have poured out of a volcano, or rather two that stand opposite this entrance to Thorir's valley. These two volcanoes are quite unlike each other, though side by side, one, called Hlothu-fell has upright walls, like Erick's-jokull, and a crater filled up and brimming over with ice; but the other Skialdbreith, or the Broad-shield, is like a conical round silver shield laid on the ground. The entrance to Thorir's Dale is completely hidden by a round snowy mountain that blocks it, and then a second snowy mountain stands further out in front of the opening, so that not a sign of any valley can be seen from anywhere.
So difficult did Grettir think it would be to find it, that he ascended on Broad-shield and set up a stone there with a hole in it, so that anyone looking through this hole would see directly into the narrow entrance of Thorir's Dale. This stone still stands where Grettir had placed it; but has sunk on one side, so that by looking through the hole the eye is no longer directed to the entrance.
No one had ever visited Thorir's Dale since Grettir left it till the year 1654, when it was explored by two Icelandic clergymen, and an account of their expedition in Icelandic is to be found in the British Museum.[#] The valley as far as I know has not been explored since. It is marked on the map of Iceland, but apparently from the description left by the two clergymen, not from any visit made to it by the map-maker.
[#] I have given a translation of it in my Curiosities of Olden Times, London, Hayes, 1869.
When the two men visited the valley they went to it in the same way as did Grettir. They found no hot springs, and the valley was utterly barren; but then they had no time to descend it, they only looked down on it from above. They found the cave with a door, and a window to it, which was probably the habitation of Thorir and his daughters.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE DEATH OF HALLMUND.
Grim's Fish Disappear—The Thief Wounded and Tracked—Death of Hallmund