Grettir the Outlaw

CHAPTER XII
OF THE FIGHT AT THE NECK

The Desolate Moor – Grettir challenges Kormak – Oxmain comes on the Scene – Slow-coach taunts Grettir – Grettir's Vexation

The next fiord on the west of that into which the river that flowed past Biarg poured was called the Ramsfirth, and at the head of it lived Grettir's married sister.

In the following summer, that is in 1014, Grettir paid his sister a visit; he had with him two servant-men from Biarg, and he spent three days and nights at his sister's. Whilst there, news reached him that Kormak, who had been away from Mais for a week or two, was on his road home, and who was now staying at a house called Tongue. Grettir at once made ready to depart, and his brother-in-law sent two men with him, for it was not safe that Grettir should have only two churls with him, as there was ill blood between him and Kormak about that affair of the horse-fight.

A high, long shoulder of desolate moor lies between the Ramsfirth and the Westriver-dale, in which is a confluent of the river that flows past Biarg. This shoulder rises to the north into a great hump, called Burfell, and on the saddle is a little lake. A very fine view is obtained from this shoulder of moor over the northern immense bay of Hunafloi, towards the glaciers and mountains of that curious excrescence of land that lies on the north-west of Iceland. I know exactly the road taken by Grettir on this occasion, for I have ridden over it. Along the top of this shoulder the rocks are scraped by glaciers, that must at one time have occupied the whole centre of the island, and have slowly slidden down into the firths on all sides. Here, what is curious is, that the rocks are furrowed, just as if carved with a graving tool, in lines from south to north, showing the direction from which the glaciers slipped down. Now, on the slope of this bit of upland is a great stone poised on a point, which I have seen. Grettir came to this stone, and spent a long time in trying to upset it. It is called Grettir's-heave to this day. The men who were with him rather wondered at him why he wasted time over this, instead of pushing on. But his sharp eye had noticed the party of Kormak leaving Tongue, and he was bent on an encounter. He thought that if Odd had seen him going over the hill he would make a lampoon about him running away from his sister's house the moment he heard that danger was threatening. So he determined to tarry till Kormak came up and fight him. He had not long to wait, for presently over the top of the hill came Kormak with Odd and some others. Grettir at once rode to meet them, and said, "Now we have our weapons on both sides, let us fight like men of good birth, and not with sticks as churls."

Then Kormak turned to his men and bade them accept the challenge and fight.

Accordingly they ran at one another and fought. Grettir bade his two serving-men stand behind his back and defend that, and he, sweeping his longsword from left to right, went forward against Kormak. Thus they fought for a while, and some were wounded on both sides.

Now it so happened that at a rich farm in the Ramsfirth-dale lived a well-to-do, and very strong man, called Thorbiorn – that is, Thor's Bear – nicknamed Oxmain. He had ridden that day over Burfell-heath, with a party, and was now returning. As he came along he heard shouts and the clashing of arms, so he quickened his pace, and presently came in sight of the fighters. He at once ordered his men to dash in between the combatants. But by this time the passions of those engaged were so furious that they would not be separated. Grettir sweeping his long-sword about him strode forward, and the men of Kormak fell back before him. Down went two of those who were with Kormak, and one servant of Atli, Grettir's brother, was killed.

Then Thorbiorn Oxmain raised his great voice and roared out, that he and his party would take sides against the first man who dealt another blow. Grettir saw that it would hardly do if Thorbiorn Oxmain brought all his force against him, so he gave up the battle; but they did not part till every one of those engaged was wounded, and two were killed on one side, and one on the other. Grettir was ill pleased that the affray had ended in this manner, and he felt resentment against Oxmain for his interference. Unfortunately, Oxmain's brother, who went by the name of the Slow-coach, made fun of the matter, and laughed about Grettir sneaking away from the fight directly he saw that he was getting the worst of it. Whatever he said was reported at Biarg, and, as may well be imagined, did not improve Grettir's temper, or liking for Oxmain and Slow-coach. Nothing further occurred between him and Kormak, probably he and Kormak were content with the trial of strength that had taken place, and were disinclined to renew a profitless contest.

Atli took no notice of the loss of his house-churl; he desired peace, and not a stirring afresh of the fires of discord. To his peaceable behaviour it was doubtless due that the quarrel with Kormak came to an end. But the vexation felt by Grettir against Oxmain for his meddlesomeness, and against Slow-coach for his gibes, rankled in his breast.

CHAPTER XIII
HOW GRETTIR AND AUDUN MADE FRIENDS

Audun's Pedigree – His relation to Grettir – Grettir's-heaves – In Willowdale – The Place called Tongue – A very strange Tale

Grettir remained through the autumn at Biarg, after the skirmish at the Neck, till September, and then he thought he would ride away east and see Audun again, with whom he had had that little ruffle that was almost a quarrel, and which was fortunately interrupted by the entrance of Bard. Audun was a cousin, though not a near one, and Grettir had no desire that any bad blood should exist between kinsfolk. Audun belonged to what was called the Madpate family; for it had had in it at least two who had been so odd in their ways that folk said they were not quite right in their minds. The relationship will easily be understood by a look at the pedigree. It will be remembered that old Onund Treefoot, who had settled in Iceland, had to wife secondly Thordis, an Icelandic woman, and his son by her was Thorgrim Grizzlepate, and this Thorgrim bought the estate and house of Biarg about the year 935. Onund Treefoot died in or about 920, and then his widow Thordis married again a man called Audun Skokull, and they had a son who was called Asgeir, who settled in Willowdale, and either went off his head or proved so queer in his ways that folks called him Madpate. This Madpate married and had a son Audun, and a daughter Thurid who married away west into a very good family; and she had a son called Thorstein Kuggson, of whom we shall hear more presently. Audun of Willowdale's son was Madpate the Second, and the lad Audun who wrestled with Grettir and burst the bottle of curds was the son of this Madpate the Second. Consequently the relationship to Grettir was through Grettir's great-grandmother, and Audun belonged to a generation younger than that of Grettir, because Grettir was the son of Asmund's old age. Moreover, Asmund's father Thorgrim had married somewhat late in life, whereas all the Madpate family had dashed into marriage at a very early age. Thus it came about that Grettir's great-grandmother was Audun's great-great-grandmother, and that, nevertheless, Audun was somewhat older than Grettir.

Grettir rode straight up over the hill behind his house. Now this hill like the Neck, already described, is rather curious, for on it are a number of rocks that have been deposited by glaciers, and not only so, but they have been dragged along by ice, scratching the rocks over which they were driven forward, and so these beds of rock are rubbed and scored with lines made by the stones forced over them by ice. Above Biarg there is one large stone that has scratched a deep furrow in the bed of rock and then has stopped at the end of the furrow it had itself scored. This remarkable phenomenon tells us of a time when the whole of the centre of Iceland was covered with glaciers, like the centre of Greenland now. These glaciers slided down the slopes of the hills, and were thrust along to the sea, where they broke off and floated away as icebergs.

Nowadays folk in Iceland do not understand these odd stones perched in queer places, which were deposited by the ancient glaciers, and they call them Grettir-taks or Grettir's-heaves. So the farmer at Biarg told me that the curious stone at the end of the furrow in the bed of rock on top of the hill was a Grettir-tak; it had been rubbed along the rock and left where it stands by Grettir. But I knew better. I knew that it was put there by an ancient glacier ages before Grettir was born, and before Iceland was discovered by the Norsemen. I have no doubt that in Grettir's time this stone was said to have been put there by some troll. Afterwards, when people ceased to believe in trolls, they said it was put there by Grettir.

Grettir's ride led him by a pretty little blue lake that lies folded in between high hills and has a stream flowing from it into a very large lake near Hop. But he did not follow the stream down; he crossed another hill, not very steep and high, and reached his cousin's house at Audun stead in Willowdale. Now this valley took its name from the woods of willows that grew in it when first settled, but at the present day none remain; all have in course of time been burnt for fuel, and except for scanty grass the Willowdale is very dreary-looking. We may be sure that Iceland presented a much more smiling and green appearance eight hundred or a thousand years ago than it does at present.

When Grettir came to Willowdale, Audun received him in a friendly manner, and Grettir made him a present of a handsome axe he had. He remained with him some little while, and they talked over old tales of Onund Treefoot and his doings, and every shadow of rivalry and anger disappeared, so that they parted at length in the best of tempers and as true and affectionate cousins.

Audun would have desired to keep Grettir there longer, but Grettir would not stay. He desired to get on to the head of Waterdale, where lived an uncle of his called Jokull, his mother's brother, at a place called Tongue.

So he rode away over the moor, and reached Tongue. Here a stream comes rushing through a gorge in a series of waterfalls, and meets another stream that comes down a valley called the Valley of Shadows further east.

Tongue is so called because it lies on a grassy slope exactly in the tongue of land between these two streams. There is now a good farm there and a church, and there I stayed a few days. At the back of Tongue the hill rises rapidly to a fell called Tongue-heath. This hill was covered with snow when Grettir arrived. This uncle Jokull was glad to see him.

He was a rough and violent man, very big and strong; and it was clear to everyone that his nephew took after his mother's family more than his father's, for there was a strong likeness both in build and face and in character between Jokull and Grettir.

He received Grettir heartily in his rough, blunt way, and bade him stay there as long as he liked. Jokull had been a seafaring man, and had made much by his merchant trips. He would probably have been a richer and more respected man had he not been so violent and overbearing and ready to pick quarrels.

Now Grettir had not been at Tongue three days before he heard a very strange tale. Jokull's mouth was full of it, and with good reason, for the events had taken place not an hour's ride distant. It was a tale about the nearest farm in the Valley of Shadows, a farm called Thorhall's-stead, which was reported to be haunted; and so serious had affairs become there that no servants would remain, and the farmer and his family had been driven from house and home by the hauntings last winter, and had come and lodged with Jokull at Tongue, and he had entertained them for some two or three months. Now this was not a case of mere fancy and fantastic fear. It was something very real and very marvellous. But it is a long story, and must be consigned to another chapter.

CHAPTER XIV
THE VALE OF SHADOWS

A Turning-point in Grettir's Life – The Farm in the Valley – The haunted Sheep-walks – A strange-looking Fellow – "Here is my Hand" – Glam keeps Faith – Glam is missing – Following the Red Track – The Ghost of Glam – Glam's Successor – Thorgaut is Missing – From Bad to Worse – Fate of the old Serving-man – Thorhall's Perplexity – Grettir offers Aid

We have come now to an incident which formed a turning-point in Grettir's life. It is a very mysterious and inexplicable story, not one that can be put aside as we have that of his fight in the tomb with Karr the Old. This is a story even more gruesome. It relates to an event that so shook Grettir's nerves that he never after could endure to be alone in the dark, and would risk all kinds of dangers to escape solitude. How much of truth lies under this strange narrative we cannot now say, but that something really did take place is certain from the effect it had on Grettir ever after.

The richest valley for grass in all this quarter of Iceland, and the most peopled, is the Waterdale. On the east rises a mountain ridge of precipitous basaltic cliffs, down which leap waterfalls from the snows above. The river that flows through this valley is fed by two main streams that unite at the farm called Tongue. The stream on the east rises a long way inland in a mass of lava, and flows through a valley so narrow and so gloomy that it goes by the name of the Valley of Shadows. The high ranges of moor and waste to the south shut off the southern sun, and the lofty banks of mountain to east and west so close it in that it gets no sun morning or evening.

A little way up this valley – not far, and not where it is most gloomy – are now the scanty ruins of a farm called Thorhall's-stead. Above this the valley so contracts and the hills are so steep that it is only with great difficulty that a horse can be led along. This I know very well; for in crossing an avalanche slide my horse and I were almost precipitated into the torrent below. Further up the valley stands a tongue of high land with a waterfall on one side and the ravine on the other, and here at one time some robbers had their fortress who were the terror of the neighbourhood. No trace of their fortress remains at present, but it was to find this place that I explored the valley.

In the farm that is now but a heap of ruins lived a bonder named Thorhall and his wife. He was not a man of much consideration in the district, for he was planted on cold, poor land, and his wealth was but small. Moreover, he had no servants; and the reason was that his sheep-walks were haunted.

Not a herdsman would remain with him. He offered high wages, he threatened, he entreated, all in vain. One shepherd after another left his service, and things came to such a pass that he determined to have the advice of the law-man or chief judge at the next annual assize.

He saddled his horses and rode to Thingvalla. Skapti was the name of the judge then, a man with a long head, and deemed the best of men for giving counsel. Thorhall told him his trouble.

"I can help you," said Skapti. "There is a shepherd who has been with me, a rude, strange man, but afraid of neither man nor hobgoblin, and strong as a bull; but he is not very clear in his intellect."

"That does not matter," said Thorhall, "so long as he can mind sheep."

"You may trust him for that," said Skapti. "He is a Swede, and his name is Glam."

Towards the end of the assize two gray horses belonging to Thorhall slipped their hobbles and strayed; so, as he had no serving-man, he went after them himself, and on his way met a strange-looking fellow, driving before him an ass laden with faggots. The man was tall and stalwart; his face attracted Torhall's attention, for the eyes were ashen gray and staring. The powerful jaw was furnished with white protruding teeth, and about his low brow hung bunches of coarse wolf-gray hair.

"Pray, what are you called?" asked Thorhall, for he suspected that this was the man Skapti had spoken about.

"Glam, at your service."

"Do you like your present duties – wood-cutting?" asked the farmer.

"No, I do not. I am properly a shepherd."

"Then, will you come with me? Skapti has spoken of you and offered you to me."

"What are the drawbacks to your service?" asked Glam cautiously.

"None, save that my sheep-walks are haunted."

"Oh! is that all? Ghosts won't scare me. Here is my hand. I will come to you before winter."

They separated, and soon after the farmer found his horses; they had got into a little wood, and were nibbling the willow tops. He went home, having thanked Skapti.

Summer passed, then autumn, and nothing further was heard of Glam. The winter storms began to bluster up the valley from the cold Polar Sea, driving the flying snowflakes and heaping them in drifts at every turn of the vale. Ice formed in the shallows of the river, and the streams which in summer trickled down the sides were now turned to icicles. I was there the very end of June, and then the whole of the mountain flank to the west was covered with frozen streams spread like a net of icicle over the black and red striped bare rock.

One gusty night a violent blow at the door startled all in the farm. In another moment Glam, tall and wild, stood in the hall glowering out of his gray staring eyes, his hair matted with frost, his teeth rattling and snapping with cold, his face blood-red in the glare of the fire that glowed in the centre of the hall.

He was well received by Thorhall, but the housewife did not like the man's looks, and did not welcome him with much heartiness. Time passed, and the shepherd was on the moors every day with the flock; his loud and deep-toned voice was often borne down on the wind as he shouted to the sheep, driving them to fold. His presence always produced a chill in the house, and when he spoke it sent a thrill through the women, who did not like him.

Christmas-eve was raw and windy; masses of gray vapour rolled up from the Arctic Ocean, and hung in piles about the mountain tops. Now and then a scud of frozen fog, covering bar and beam with feathery hoar-frost, swept up the glen. As the day declined snow began to fall in large flakes.

When the wind lulled there could be heard the shout of Glam high up on the hillside. Darkness closed in, and with the darkness the snow fell thicker. There was a church then at Thorhall's farm; there is none there now, since the valley has been abandoned from its cold and ill name.

The lights were kindled in the church, and every snowflake as it sailed down past the open door burned like a golden feather in the light.

When the service was over, and the farmer and his party returned to the house, Glam had not come home. This was strange; as he could not live abroad in the cold, and the sheep would also require shelter. Thorhall was uneasy and proposed a search, but no one would go with him; and no wonder, it was not a night for a dog to be out in, and the tracks would all be buried in snow. So the family sat up all night listening, trembling and anxious.

Day broke at last faintly in the south over the great white masses of mountains. Now a party was formed to search for the missing man. A sharp climb brought them to the top of the moor above Tongue. Here and there a sheep was found shivering under a rock or half buried in a snowdrift, but of Glam – not a sign.

Presently the whole party was called together about a spot on the hilltop where the snow was trampled and kicked about, and it was clear that some desperate struggle had taken place there. There the snow was also dabbled with frozen blood. A red track led further up the mountain side, and the searchers were following it when a boy uttered a shriek of fear. In looking behind a rock he had come on the corpse of the shepherd lying on its back with the arms extended. The body was taken up and carried to the edge of the gorge, and was there buried under a pile of stones, heaped over it to the height of about six feet. How Glam had died, by whom killed, no one knew, nor could they make a guess.

Two nights after this one of the thralls who had gone for the cows burst into the hall with a face blank from terror; he staggered to a seat and fainted. On recovering his senses, in a broken voice he assured those who were round him that he had seen Glam walking past him, with huge strides, as he left the stable door. The shepherd had turned his head and looked at him fixedly from his great gray staring eyes. On the following day a stable lad was found in a fit under a wall, and he never after recovered his senses. It was thought he must have seen something that had scared him. Next, some of the women, declared that they had seen Glam looking in on them through a window of the dairy. In the dusk Thorhall himself met the dead man, who stood and glowered at him, but made no attempt to injure his master, and uttered not a word. The haunting did not end thus. Nightly a heavy tread was heard round the house, and a hand groping along the walls, and sometimes a hand came in at the windows, a great coarse hand, that in the red light from the fire seemed as though steeped in blood.

When the spring came round the disturbances lessened, and as the sun obtained full power, ceased altogether.

During the course of the summer a Norwegian vessel came into the fiord; Thorhall went on board and found there a man named Thorgaut, who had come out in search of work. Thorhall engaged him as a shepherd, but not without honestly telling him his trouble, and what there was uncanny about his sheep-walks, and how Glam had fared. The man did not regard this, he laughed, and promised to be with Thorhall at the appointed season.

Accordingly he arrived in autumn, and he soon established himself as a favourite in the house; he romped with the children, helped his fellow-servants, and was as much liked as his predecessor had been detested. He was such a merry careless fellow that he did not think anything of the risks that lay before him, and joked about them.

When winter set in strange sights and sounds began to alarm the folk at the farm, but Thorgaut was not troubled; he slept too soundly at night to be disturbed by the heavy tread round the house.

On the day before Yule, as was his wont, Thorgaut drove out the sheep to pasture. Thorhall was uneasy. He said to him: "I pray you be careful, and do not go near the barrow under which Glam was laid."

"Don't fear for me," laughed Thorgaut, "I shall be back in time for supper, and shall attend you to church."

Night settled in, but no Thorgaut arrived. There was little mirth at table when the supper was brought in. All were anxious and fearful.

The wind was cold and wetting. Blocks of ice were driving about in the bay, grinding against each other, and the sound could be heard far up the valley. Aloft, the aurora flames were lighting up the heavens with an arch of fire. Again this Christmas night the dwellers in the farm sat up and did not go to bed, waiting for the return of Thorgaut, but he did not arrive.

Next morning he was sought, and was found lying dead across the barrow of Glam, with his spine and one leg and one arm broken. He was brought home and laid in the churchyard.

Matters now rapidly became worse. Outbuildings were broken into of a night, and their woodwork was rent and shattered; the house door was violently shaken, and great pieces of it were torn away; the gables of the house were also pulled furiously to and fro.

Now it fell out that one morning the only man who remained in the service of the family went out early. Not another servant dared to remain in the place, and this man remained because he had been with Thorhall and with his father, and he could not make up his mind to desert his master in his need. About an hour after he had gone out Thorhall's wife took her milking cans and went to the cow-house that she might milk the cows, as she had now not a maid in the house, and had to do everything herself. On reaching the door of the cow-house she heard a terrible sound from within, the bellowing of the cattle, and the deep bell-notes of an unearthly voice. She was so frightened that she dropped her pails and ran back to the house and called her husband. Thorhall was in bed, but he rose instantly, caught up a weapon, and hastened to the cow-house.

On opening the door he found all the cattle loose and goring each other. Slung across the stone that separated their stalls was the old serving-man, perfectly dead, with his back broken. He had, apparently, been tossed by the cows, and had fallen on this stone backwards.

Neither Thorhall nor his wife explained his death in this way; they thought that Glam must have been there, have driven the cattle wild, and that just as he had broken the back of Thorgaut, so had he now broken that of the poor old serving-man.

It was impossible for the bonder to remain longer in that place; he and his wife therefore removed down to Tongue, which lies at the junction of the two rivers, and there things were quiet. There he was hospitably received by Jokull. Thorhall was able to persuade some of his runaway servants to come back to him, but no man all that winter would go near the moor where was the barrow of the shepherd Glam.

Not till the summer returned, and the sun had dispelled the darkness, did Thorhall venture back to the Vale of Shadows. In the meanwhile his daughter's health had given way under the repeated alarms of the winter; she became paler every day; with the autumn flowers she faded, and was laid in the churchyard before the first snowflakes fell. What was Thorhall to do through the winter? He knew that it was not possible for him to secure servants if he remained on his own farm; besides, he did not know what loss might come to his stock. Then, he could not spend the whole winter at Tongue, for that was another bonder's house, and though the farmer there had kindly received him and entertained him for three months the winter before, he could not ask him to give him houseroom to himself, his cattle, and servants for a whole long winter.

So he was in the greatest possible perplexity what to do. Help came to him from an unexpected quarter.

Grettir had heard the story of the hauntings, and he rode to Thorhall's farm and asked if he might be accommodated there for the night. He said that it was his great desire to encounter Glam.

Thorhall was surprised, but not exactly pleased, for he thought that the family at Biarg would attribute the wrong to him were anything to happen to Grettir.

Grettir put his horse into the stable, and retired for the night to one of the beds in the hall and slept soundly.