<i>Gisli's meeting with Grettir</i>.
There was a man hight Gisli, the son of that Thorstein whom Snorri
Godi had slain. Gisli was a big man and strong, a man showy in
weapons and clothes, who made much of himself, and was somewhat of
a self-praiser; he was a seafaring man, and came one summer out to
Whiteriver, whenas Grettir had been a winter on the fell. Thord, son
of Kolbein, rode to his ship, and Gisli gave him good welcome, and
bade him take of his wares whatso he would; thereto Thord agreed, and
then they fell to talk one with the other, and Gisli said:
"Is that true which is told me, that ye have no counsel that avails to
rid you of a certain outlaw who is doing you great ill?"
Thord said, "We have not tried aught on him yet, but to many he seems
a man hard to deal with, and that has been proven on many a man."
"It is like, methinks, that you should find Biorn a heavy trouble, if
ye may not drive away this man: luckless it is for you withal, that I
shall be too far off this winter to better matters for you."
"Thou wilt be better pleased to deal with him by hearsay."
"Nay, no need to tell me of Grettir," said Gisli; "I have borne harder
brunts when I was in warfare along with King Knut the Mighty, and west
over the Sea, and I was ever thought to hold my own; and if I should
have a chance at him I would trust myself and my weapons well enough."
Thord said he would not work for nought if he prevailed against
Grettir; "For there is more put upon his head than on the head of any
other of wood-folk; six marks of silver it was; but last summer Thorir
of Garth laid thereto yet three marks; and men deem he will have
enough to do therefor whose lot it is to win it."
"All things soever will men do for money," says Gisli, "and we chapmen
not the least; but now shall we keep this talk hushed up, for mayhap
he will be the warier," says he, "if he come to know that I am with
you against him: now I am minded to abide this winter at Snowfellsness
at Wave-ridge. Is his lair on my way at all? for he will not foresee
this, nor shall I draw together many men against him."
Thord liked the plot well, he rode home therewith and held his peace
about this; but now things went according to the saw, <i>a listening
ear in the holt is anear</i>; men had been by at the talk betwixt
Thord and Gisli, who were friends to Biorn of Hitdale, and they told
him all from end to end; so when Biorn and Grettir met, Biorn showed
forth the whole matter to him, and said that now he might prove how he
could meet a foe.
"It would not be bad sport," said he, "if thou wert to handle him
roughly, but to slay him not, if thou mightest do otherwise."
Grettir smiled thereat, but spake little.
Now at the folding time in the autumn Grettir went down to
Flysia-wharf and got sheep for himself; he had laid hold on four
wethers; but the bonders became ware of his ways and went after him;
and these two things befell at the same time, that he got up under the
fell-side, and that they came upon him, and would drive the sheep from
him, yet bare they no weapon against him; they were six altogether,
and stood thick in his path. Now the sheep troubled him and he waxed
wroth, and caught up two of those men, and cast them down over the
hill-side, so that they lay stunned; and when the others saw that,
they came on less eagerly; then Grettir took up the sheep and locked
them together by the horns, and threw them over his shoulders, two on
each side, and went up into his lair.
So the bonders turned back, and deemed they had got but ill from him,
and their lot misliked them now worse than before.
Now Gisli abode at his ship through the autumn till it was rolled
ashore. Many things made him abide there, so he was ready late, and
rode away but a little before winter-nights. Then he went from the
south, and guested under Raun on the south side of Hitriver. In the
morning, before he rode thence, he began a talk with his fellows:
"Now shall we ride in coloured clothes to-day, and let the outlaw see
that we are not like other wayfarers who are drifted about here day by
day."
So this they did, and they were three in all: but when they came west
over the river, he spake again to them:
"Here in these bents, I am told, lurks the outlaw, and no easy way is
there up to him; but may it not perchance seem good to him to come and
meet us and behold our array?"
They said that it was ever his wont so to do. Now that morning Grettir
had risen early in his lair; the weather was cold and frosty, and snow
had fallen, but not much of it. He saw how three men rode from the
south over Hitriver, and their state raiment glittered and their
inlaid shields. Then it came into his mind who these should be, and he
deems it would be good for him to get some rag of their array; and he
was right wishful withal to meet such braggarts: so he catches up his
weapons and runs down the slip-side. And when Gisli heard the clatter
of the stones, he spake thus:
"There goes a man down the hill-side, and somewhat big he is, and he
is coming to meet us: now, therefore, let us go against him briskly,
for here is good getting come to hand."
His fellows said that this one would scarce run into their very
hands, if he knew not his might; "And good it is that <i>he bewail who
brought the woe</i>."
So they leapt off their horses, and therewith Grettir came up to them,
and laid hands on a clothes-bag that Gisli had tied to his saddle
behind him, and said--
"This will I have, for oft I lowt for little things."
Gisli answers, "Nay, it shall not be; dost thou know with whom thou
hast to do?"
Says Grettir, "I am not very clear about that; nor will I have much
respect for persons, since I am lowly now, and ask for little."
"Mayhap thou thinkest it little," says he, "but I had rather pay down
thirty hundreds; but robbery and wrong are ever uppermost in thy mind
methinks; so on him, good fellows, and let see what he may do."
So did they, and Grettir gave back before them to a stone which stands
by the way and is called Grettir's-Heave, and thence defended himself;
and Gisli egged on his fellows eagerly; but Grettir saw now that he
was no such a hardy heart as he had made believe, for he was ever
behind his fellows' backs; and withal he grew aweary of this fulling
business, and swept round the short-sword, and smote one of Gisli's
fellows to the death, and leaped down from the stone, and set on so
fiercely, that Gisli shrank aback before him all along the hill-side:
there Gisli's other fellow was slain, and then Grettir spake:
"Little is it seen in thee that thou hast done well wide in the world,
and in ill wise dost thou part from thy fellows."
Gisli answers, "<i>Hottest is the fire that lies on oneself--with
hell's-man are dealings ill</i>."
Then they gave and took but a little, before Gisli cast away his
weapons, and took to his heels out along the mountain. Grettir gave
him time to cast off whatso he would, and every time Gisli saw a
chance for it he threw off somewhat of his clothes; and Grettir never
followed him so close but that there was still some space
betwixt them. Gisli ran right past that mountain and then across
Coldriver-dale, and then through Aslaug's-lithe and above by
Kolbeinstead, and then out into Burgh-lava; and by then was he in
shirt and breech alone, and was now exceeding weary. Grettir still
followed after him, and there was ever a stone's throw between them;
and now he pulled up a great bush. But Gisli made no stay till he came
out at Haf-firth-river, and it was swollen with ice and ill to ford;
Gisli made straightway for the river, but Grettir ran in on him and
seized him, and then the strength of either was soon known: Grettir
drave him down under him, and said,
"Art thou that Gisli who would fain meet Grettir Asmundson?"
Gisli answers, "I have found him now, in good sooth, nor do I know in
what wise we shall part: keep that which thou hast got, and let me go
free."
Grettir said, "Nay, thou art scarce deft enow to learn what I have to
teach thee, so needs must I give thee somewhat to remember it by."
Therewith he pulls the shirt up over his head and let the twigs go all
down his back, and along both sides of him, and Gisli strove all he
might to wriggle away from him; but Grettir flogged him through and
through, and then let him go; and Gisli thought he would learn no
more of Grettir and have such another flogging withal; nor did he ever
again earn the like skin-rubbing.
But when he got his legs under him again, he ran off unto a great
pool in the river, and swam it, and came by night to a farm called
Horseholt, and utterly foredone he was by then. There he lay a week
with his body all swollen, and then fared to his abode.
Grettir turned back, and took up the things Gisli had cast down, and
brought them to his place, nor from that time forth gat Gisli aught
thereof.
Many men thought Gisli had his due herein for the noise and swagger
he had made about himself; and Grettir sang this about their dealings
together--
"In fighting ring where steed meets steed,
The sluggish brute of mongrel breed,
Certes will shrink back nothing less
Before the stallion's dauntlessness,
Than Gisli before me to-day;
As, casting shame and clothes away,
And sweating o'er the marsh with fear,
He helped the wind from mouth and rear."
The next spring Gisli got ready to go to his ship, and bade men above
all things beware of carrying aught of his goods south along the
mountain, and said that the very fiend dwelt there.
Gisli rode south along the sea all the way to his ship, and never met
Grettir again; and now he is out of the story.
But things grew worse between Thord Kolbeinson and Grettir, and Thord
set on foot many a plot to get Grettir driven away or slain.