Grettir now fastened a stone in a loop at the end of the rope, and
lowered it from above into the water.
"Which way do you mean to go?" asked the priest.
"I don't mean to be bound when I come into the fall," Grettir said. "So
my mind tells me."
Then he prepared to go; he had few clothes on and only a short sword; no
other arms. He jumped from a rock and got down to the fall. The priest
saw the soles of his feet but after that did not know what had become of
him. Grettir dived beneath the fall.
It was very difficult swimming because of the currents, and he had to
dive to the bottom to get behind the fall. There was a rock where he
came up, and a great cave under the fall in front of which the water
poured. He went into the cave, where there was a large fire burning
and a horrible great giant most fearful to behold sitting before it. On
Grettir entering the giant sprang up, seized a pike and struck at him,
for he could both strike and thrust with it. It had a wooden shaft and
was of the kind called "heptisax." Grettir struck back with his sword
and cut through the shaft. Then the giant tried to reach up backwards to
a sword which was hanging in the cave, and at that moment Grettir
struck at him and cut open his lower breast and stomach so that all his
entrails fell out into the river and floated down the stream. The priest
who was sitting by the rope saw some debris being carried down all
covered with blood and lost his head, making sure that Grettir was
killed. He left the rope and ran off home, where he arrived in the
evening and told them for certain that Grettir was dead, and said it was
a great misfortune to them to have lost such a man.
Grettir struck few more blows at the giant before he was dead. He then
entered the cave, kindled a light and explored. It is not told how much
treasure he found there, but there is supposed to have been some. He
stayed there till late into the night and found the bones of two men,
which he carried away in a skin. Then he came out of the cave, swam to
the rope and shook it, thinking the priest was there; finding him gone
he had to swarm up the rope and so reached the top. He went home to
Eyjardalsa and carried the skin with the bones in it into the vestibule
of the church together with a rune-staff, upon which were most
beautifully carved the following lines:
"Into the fall of the torrent I went;
dank its maw towards me gaped.
The floods before the ogress' den
Mighty against my shoulder played";
and then:
"Hideous the friend of troll-wife came.
Hard were the blows I dealt upon him.
The shaft of Heptisax was severed.
My sword has pierced the monster's breast."
There too it was told how Grettir had brought the bones from the cave.
The priest when he came to the church on the next morning found the
staff and all that was with it and read the runes. Grettir had then
returned home to Sandhaugar.