sometimes even dropping flat upon the sea, blotting the horizon and
whirling about like geyser mist or the reek and smoke from the mouth of
_jokuls_. Then, perhaps, out of the fog and out of the rain, suddenly
great and fearful came towering and dipping a mighty berg, the waves
breaking like surf about its base, spires of grey ice lifting skywards,
all dripping and gashed and jagged; knobs and sharp ridges thrusting
from under beneath the water, full of danger to ships. At such moments
they must put the helm over quickly, sheering off from the colossus
before it caught and trampled them.
But no living thing did they see through all the day. Sea birds there
were none; no porpoises played about the boat, no seals barked from
surge to surge. There was nothing but the silent gallop of the waves,
the flitting of the leaden sky, the uneven panting of the wind, and the
rattle of the rain on the half-frozen sail. The sea was very lonely,
barren, empty of all life.
Towards the middle of the day, when Iceland lay far behind them,--a bar
of black on the ocean's edge,--they were little by little aware of the
roll and thunder of breakers, and the cries and calls of very many sea
birds and--very faint--the bleating of sheep. The fog and the scud of
rain and the spindrift that the wind whipped from off the wavetops shut
out all sight beyond the cast of a spear. But they knew that they must
be driving hard upon the island, and Grettir, from his place at the
helm, bent himself to look under the curve of the sail. He called to
Illugi, his brother, and to Noise, the thrall, who stood peering at the
bows of the boat (their eyes made small to pierce the mist), to know if
they saw aught of the island.
"I see," answered Illugi, "only wrack and drift of wreck and streamers
of kelp, but we are close upon it."
Then all at once Grettir threw the boat up into the wind, and shouted
aloud:
"Look overhead! Quick! Above there! We are indeed close."
And for all that the foot and mid-most part of the island were unseen
because of the mist, there, far above them, between sea and sky,
looming, as it were, out of heaven, rose suddenly the front of the
cliff, rearing the forehead of it, high from out all that din of surf
and swirl of mist and rain, bare to the buffet of storms, iron-strong,
everlasting, a mighty rock.
They lowered the sail and ran out the sweeps, and for an hour skirted
the edge of the island searching for the landing-place, where the
rope-ladder hung from the cliff's edge. When they had found it, they
turned the nose of the boat landward, and, caught by the set of the
surf, were drawn inwards, and at last flung up on the beaches.
Waist-deep in the icy undertow, they ran the boat up and made her fast,
rejoicing that they had won to land without ill-fortune.
The wind for an instant tore in twain the veils of fog, and they saw the
black cliff towering above them, as well as the ladder that hung from
its summit clattering against the rock as the wind dashed it to and fro,
and as they turned from the boat to look about them, lo, at their feet,
stranded at make of the ebb, a great walrus, crushed between two
ice-floes, lay dead, the rime of the frost encrusting its barbels.
So Grettir Asmundson, called The Strong, outlawed throughout Iceland,
came with his brother Illugi, and the thrall Noise, to live on the
Island of Drangey.
*II*
*HOW GRETTIR AND ILLUGI HIS BROTHER KEPT THE ISLAND*
On top of the cliff (to be reached only by climbing the rope-ladder)
were sheep-walks, where the shepherds from the mainland kept their
flocks. Grettir and Illugi took over these, for food and for the sake of
their pelts which were to make them coverings. They built themselves a
house out of the driftwood that came ashore at the foot of the cliff
with every tide, and throughout the rest of the winter days lived in
peace.
But in the early spring a fisherman carried the news to the mainland
that he had seen men on the top of Drangey, and that the ladder was up.
Forthwith came the farmers and shepherds in their boats to know if such
were the truth. They found, indeed, the ladder up, and after calling
and shouting a long time time, brought the hero and his brother to the
cliff's edge.
"What now?" they cried. "Give a reckoning of our sheep. Is it peace or
war between you and us? Why have you come to our island? Answer,
Grettir--outlaw."
"What I have, I hold," called Grettir. "Outlawed I am, indeed, and no
man is there in all Iceland that dare help me to home or hiding. Mine
is the Island of Drangey, and mine are the sheep and the goats."
"Robber!" shouted the shepherds, "since when have you bought the island?
Show the title."
For answer Grettir drew his sword from its sheath, and held it high.
"That is my title," he cried. "When that you shall take from me, the
Island of Drangey is yours again."
"At least render up our sheep," answered the shepherds.
"What I have said, I have said!" cried Grettir, and with that he and
Illugi drew back from the cliff's edge and were no more seen.
The shepherds sailed back to the mainland, and could think of no way of
ridding the island of Grettir and his brother.
The summer waned, and finding themselves no further along than at the
beginning, they struck hands with a certain Thorbjorn, called The Hook,
and sold him their several claims.
So it came about that Thorbjorn the Hook was also an enemy of Grettir,
for he swore that foul or fair, ill or well, he would have the head of
the hero, and the price that was upon it, as well as the sheepwalks and
herds of Drangey.
This Thorbjorn had an old foster-mother named Thurid, who, although the
law of Christ had long since prevailed through all the country, still
made witchcraft, and by this means promised The Hook that he should have
the island, and with it the heads of Illugi and Grettir. She herself
was a mumbling, fumbling carline of a sour spirit and fierce temper.
Once when The Hook and his brother were at tail-game, she, looking over
his shoulder, taunted him because he had made a bad move. On his
answering in surly fashion, she caught up one of the pieces, and drove
the tail of it so fiercely against his eye that the ball had started
from the socket. He had sprung up with a mighty oath, and dealt her so
strong a blow that she had taken to her bed a month, and thereafterward
must walk with a stick. There was no love lost between the two.
Meanwhile, Grettir and Illugi lived in peace upon the top of Drangey.
Illugi was younger than the hero; a fine lad with yellow hair and blue
eyes. The brothers loved each other, and could not walk or sit
together, but that the arm of one was about the shoulder of the other.
The lad knew very well that neither he nor Grettir would ever leave
Drangey alive; but in spite of that he abode on the island, and was
happy in the love and comradeship of his older brother. As for Grettir,
hunted and hustled from Norway to Skaptar Jokul, he could trust Illugi
only. The thrall Noise was meet for little but to gather driftwood to
feed the fire. But Illugi, of all men in the world, Grettir had chosen
to stay at his side in this, the last stand of his life, and to bear him
company in the night when he waked and was afraid.
For the weird that the Vampire had laid upon Grettir, when he had fought
with him through the night at Thorhall-stead, lay heavy upon him. As
the Vampire had said, his strength was never greater than at the moment
when, spent and weary with the grapple, he had turned the monster under
him; and, moreover, as the dead man had foretold, the eyes of him--the
sightless, lightless dead eyes of him--grew out of the darkness in the
late watches of the night, and stared at Grettir whichever way he
turned.
For a long time all went well with the two. Bleak though it was, the
brothers grew to love the Island of Drangey. Not all the days were so
bitter as the one that witnessed their arrival. Throughout the
summer--when the daylight lengthened and lengthened, till at last the
sun never set at all--the weather held fair. The crust of soil on the
top of the great rock grew green and brilliant with gorse and moss and
manzel-wursel. Blackberries flourished on southern exposures and in
crevices between the bowlders, and wild thyme and heather bloomed and
billowed in the sea wind.
Day after day the brothers walked the edge of the cliff, making the
rounds of the snares they had set for sea fowl. Day after day,
descending to the beaches, they fished in the offing or with ready
spears crept from rock to rock, stalking the great bull-walruses that
made the land to sun themselves. Day after day in a cloudless sky the
sun shone; day after day the sea, deep blue, coruscated and flashed in
his light; day after day the wind blew free, the flowers spread, and the
surf shouted hoarsely on the beaches, and the sea fowl clamoured, cried,
and rose and fell in glinting hordes. The air was full of the fine,
clean aroma of the ocean, even the perfume of the flowers was crossed
with a tang of salt, and the seaweed at low tide threw off, under the
heat of the sun, a warm, sweet redolence of its own.
It was a brave life. They were no man's men. The lonely, rock-ribbed
island, the grass, the growths of green, the blue sea, and the blessed
sunlight were their friends, their helpers; they held what of the world
they saw in fief. They made songs to the morning, and sang them on the
cliff's edge, looking off over the sea beneath, standing on a point of
rock, the wind in their faces, the taste of salt in their mouths, their
long braids of yellow hair streaming from their foreheads.
They made songs to their swords, and swung the ponderous blades in
cadence as they sang--wild, unrhymed, metrical chants, monotonous,
turning upon but few notes; savage songs, full of man-slayings and
death-fights against great odds, shouted out in deep-toned, male voices,
there, far above the world, on that airy, wind-swept, lonely rock. A
brave life!
The end they knew must come betimes. They were in nowise afraid. They
made a song to their death--the song they would sing when they had
turned Berserk in the crash of swords, when the great grey blades were
rising and falling, death, like lightning, leaping from their edges;
when shield rasped shield, and the spears sank home and wrenched out the
life in a spurt of scarlet, and the massive axes rang upon helmet and
hauberk, and men, heroes all, met death with a cheer, and went out into
the Dark with a shout. A brave life!
*III*
*OF THE WEIRD OF THURID, FOSTER-MOTHER TO THORBJORN HOOK*
Twice during that summer The Hook made attempts to secure the island.
Once he sailed over to Drangey, and standing up in the prow of his boat
near the beach, close by where the ladder hung, talked long with
Grettir, who came to the rim of the cliff in answer to his shouts. He
promised the Outlaw (so only that he would yield up the island) full
possession of half the sheep that yet remained and a free passage in one
of his ships to any port within fifty leagues. But the hero had but one
answer to all persuadings.
"Drangey is mine," he said. "There is no rede whereby you can get me
hence. Here do I bide, whatso may come to hand, to the day of my death
and my undoing," and The Hook must sail home in evil mind, gnawing his
nails in his fury, and vowing that he would yet gain the island and lay
Grettir to earth, and get the best out of the bad bargain he had made.
Another time The Hook hired a man named Hoering, a great climber, to
try, by night, to scale the hinder side of Drangey where the cliff was
not so bold. But halfway up the man lost either his wits or his
footing, for he fell dreadfully upon the rocks far below, and brake the
neck of him, so that the spine drave through the skin.
And after that, certainly Grettir and Illugi were let alone. The fame
of them and of their seizure of Drangey and the blood feud between them
and Thorbjorn, called The Hook, went wide through all that part of
Iceland, and many the man that put off from the mainland and sailed to
the island, just to hail the Outlaw, at the head of the ladder, and wish
him well. Thus the summer and the next winter passed.
At about the break-up of the winter night, The Hook began to importune
his foster-mother, Thurid, that she should make good her promise as to
the winning of Grettir. At last she said: "If you are to have my rede,
I must have my will. Strike hands with my hand then, and swear to me to
do those things that I shall say." And The Hook struck hands and sware
the oath.
Then, though he was loath to visit the island again, she bade him man an
eight-oared boat and flit her out to Drangey.
When they had reached the island, and after much shouting had brought
Grettir and Illugi to the edge of the rock, Thorbjorn again renewed his
offer, saying further that if there were now but few sheep left upon the
island, he would add a bag of silver pennies to make the difference
good.
"Bootless be your quest," answered Grettir. "Wot this well. What I have
said, I have said. My bones shall rot upon Drangey ere I set foot on
other soil."
But at his words the carline, who till now had sat huddled in rags and
warps in the bow of the boat, stirred herself and screamed out:
"An ill word for a fair offer. The wits are out of these men that they
may not know the face of their good fortune, and upon an evil time have
they put their weal from them. Now this I cast over thee, Grettir; that
thou be left of all health and good-hap, all good heed and wisdom, and
that the longer ye live the less shall be thy luck. Good hope have I,
Grettir, that thy days of gladness shall be fewer in time to come than
in time gone by."
And at the words behold, Grettir the Strong, whose might no two men
could master, staggered as though struck, and then a rage came upon him,
and plucking up a stone from the earth, he flung it at the heap of rags
in the boat, so that it fell upon the hag's leg and brake it.
"An evil deed, brother," said Illugi. "Surely no good will come of
that."
"Nor none from the words of that hell-cat yonder," answered Grettir.
"Not over-much were-gild were paid for us, though the price should be
one carline's life."
The Hook sailed back to the mainland after this, and sat at home while
the leg of his foster-mother mended. But when she was able to walk
again, she bade him lead her forth upon the shore. For a time she
hobbled up and down till she had found a piece of driftwood to her
liking. She turned over, now upon this side, now upon that, mumbling to
herself the while, till The Hook, puzzled, said:
"What work ye there, foster-mother?"
"The bane of Grettir," answered the witch, and with that she crouched
herself down by the log and cut runes upon it. Then she stood upright
and walked backwards about the log, and went widdershins around it, and
then, after carving more runes, bade Thorbjorn cast it into the sea.
The Hook scoffed and jeered, but, mindful of his oath, set the log
adrift. Now the flood tide made strongly at the time, and the wind set
from off the ocean.
"It will come to shore," he said.
"Ay, that I hope," said the witch; "to the shore of Drangey."
On the beaches, where the torn scum and froth of the waves shuddered and
tumbled to and fro in the wind, The Hook and the old witch stood
watching. Thrice the surf flung the log landward, thrice the undertow
sucked it back. It was carried under the curve of a great hissing
comber, disappeared, then rose dripping on the far side. The hag, bent
upon her crutch, her toothless jaws fumbling and working, her gray hair
streaming in the wind, fixed a glittering eye, malevolent, iniquitous,
far out to sea where Drangey showed itself, a block of misty blue over
the horizon's edge.
"A strong spell for a strong man," she muttered, "and an ill curse for
an evil deed. Blighted be the breasts that sucked ye, and black and
bitter the bread ye cat. Look thou now, foster-son," she cried, raising
her voice.
The Hook crossed himself, and his head crouched fearfully between his
shoulders. Under his bent brows the glance of him shot uneasily from
side to side.
"A bad business," he whispered, and he trembled as he spoke. For the
log was riding the waves like a skiff, headed seawards, making way
against tide and wind, veering now east, now west, but in the main
working steadily toward Drangey. "A bad business, and peril of thy life
is toward if the deed thou hast done this day be told of at Thingvalla."
*IV*
*THE NIGHT-FLITTING OF THORBJORN HOOK*
By candle-lighting time that day the storm had reached such a pitch and
so mighty was the fury and noise raging across the top of Drangey, that
Grettir and Illugi must needs put their lips to one another's ears when
they spoke. There was no rain as yet, and the wind that held straight as
an arrow's flight over the ocean, had blown away all mists and clouds,
so that the atmosphere was of an ominous clearness, and the coasts of
Iceland showed livid white against the purple black of the sky.
There were strange sounds about: the prolonged alarums of the gale;
blast trumpeting to blast all through the hollow upper spaces of the
air; the metallic slithering of the frozen grasses, writhing and
tormented; the minute whistle of driving sand; the majestic diapason of
the breakers, and the wild piping of bewildered sea-mews and black
swans, as, helpless in the sudden gusts, they drove past, close overhead
with slanted wings stretched tense and taut.
Towards evening Grettir and Illugi regained the hut, their bodies bent
and inclined against the wind. They bore between them the carcass of a
slaughtered sheep, the last on the island, for by now they had killed
and eaten all of the herd, with the exception of one old ram, whom they
had spared because of his tameness. This one followed the brothers
about like a dog, and each night came to the door of the hut and butted
against it till he was allowed to come in.
Earlier in the day Grettir, foreseeing that the weather would be hard,
had sent Noise, the servant, to gather in a greater supply of drift.
The thrall now met the brothers at the door of the hut, staggering under
the weight of a great log. He threw his burden down at Grettir's feet
and spoke surlily, for he was but little pleased with his lot:
"There be that which I hold will warm you enough. Hew it now yourself,
for I am spent with the toil of getting it in on such a night as this."
But as Grettir heaved up the axe, Illugi sprang forward with a hand
outstretched and a warning cry. He had glanced at the balk of drift,
and had seen it to be one that Grettir had twice discarded, suspicious
of the runes that he saw were cut into it. Even Noise had been warned
and forbidden to bring it to the hut. Doubtless on this day the thrall
had found it close by the foot of the ladder, and being too slothful and
too ill-tempered to seek farther, had fetched it in despite of Grettir's
commands.
"Brother," cried Illugi, "have a heed what ye do!"
But he spoke too late. Grettir hewed strong upon the balk, and the axe
flipped from it and drave into his leg below the knee, so that the blade
hung in the bone. Grettir flung down the axe, and staggered into the
hut and sank upon the bed.
"Ill-luck is to us-ward," he cried, "and now wot I well that my death is
upon me. For no good thing was this drift-timber sent thrice to us.
Noise, evilly hast thou done, and ill hast thou served us. Go now and
draw the ladder, and let thy faithful service henceforth make good the
ill-turn thou hast done me to-day." And with the words the brothers
drove him out into the night.
Grumbling, the thrall made his way to the ladder-head, and sat down
cursing.
"A fine life," he muttered, "hounded like a house-carle from dawn to
dark. Because the son of Asmund swings awkwardly his axe and notches
the skin of him, I must be driven from house and hearthstone on so hard
a night as this. Draw the ladder! Ay, draw the ladder, says he. By
God! it were no man's deed to risk whether he could win to the island in
such a storm as this."
For all that, he made at least one attempt to draw the ladder up. But
it was heavy, and the wind, thrashing it to and fro, made it hard to
manage. Noise soon gave over, and, out of spite refusing to return to
the hut, drew his cloak over his head, and crawling in behind a bowlder
addressed himself to sleep. He was awakened by a blow.
He sprang up. The night was overcast; it had been raining; his cloak
was drenched. Men were there; dark figures crowding together,
whispering. There was a click and clash of steel, and against the pale
blur of the sky, he saw, silhouetted, the moving head of a spear. Again
some one struck him. He wrenched about terrified, and a score of hands
gripped him close, while at his throat sprang the clutch of fingers
iron-strong. Then a voice:
"Fool, and son of a fool, and worse than a fool! It is I, Thorbjorn,
called The Hook. Speak as he should speak who is nigh to death, true
words and few words. What of Grettir?"
"Sore bestead," Noise made shift to answer, through the grip upon his
throat. "Crippled with his own axe as he hewed upon a log of firewood
but this very day. Down upon his back he is, and none to stand at his
side, when the need is on him, but the boy Illugi."
"A log, say you?" whispered The Hook. Then turning to a comrade: "Mark
you that, Hialfi Thinbeard."
"A log cut with runes," insisted Noise.
"Ay, with runes," repeated The Hook. "With runes, I say, Hialfi
Thinbeard. My mind misgave me when the carline urged this flitting
to-night, and only for my oath's sake I would have foregone it. But an
old she-goat knows the shortest path to the byre. As for you"--he
turned to Noise: "Grettir is mine enemy, and the feud of blood lies
between us, but he deserves a better thrall than so foul a bird as
thou."
Thereat he gave the word, and his carles set upon Noise and beat him
till no breath was left in his body. Then they bound him hand and foot,
and dragged him behind a rock, and left him.
Noise watched them as they drew to one side and whispered together.
There were at least twenty of them. For a long moment they conferred
together in low voices, while the wind shrilled fiercely in the cluster
of their spear-blades. Then there was a movement. The group broke up.
Silently and with cautious steps the dark figures of the men moved off
in the direction of the hut. Twice, as The Hook gave the word, they
halted to listen. Then they moved on again. They disappeared. A pebble
clicked under foot, a sword struck faintly against a rock.
There was no more sound. The rain urged by the wind held steadily
across the top of the Island of Drangey. It wanted about three hours
till dawn.
*V*
*OF THE MAN-SLAYING ON DRANGEY*
In the hut, his head upon his brother's lap, Grettir lay tossing with
pain. From the thigh down the leg was useless, and from the thigh down
it throbbed with anguish, yet the Outlaw gave no sign of his sufferings,
and even to speed the slow passing of the night had sung aloud.