"Brewer of strong barley-corn,
Pourer forth of drinking-horn,
Lo! to-day the Stonewolf fell,
Ne'er again his head be well.
Many more have got their bane,
Many in their blood lie slain;
Little life has Thorgils now,
After that bone-breaking blow.
Eight upon the river's bank
In their gore expiring sank."
*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.