He said: "I have something better to do than to keep my men guarding him. I have labour enough with my lands, and he shall not come in my way."Then they asked Thorkell of Gervidal to take him and said he had sufficient means. He objected strongly and said he had no accommodation for him, "I lie at home with my wife, far from other men. You shall not bring your basket to me.""Then you, Thoralf of Eyr," they said; "you take Grettir and look after him well while the Thing lasts, or else hand him on to the next farm; only be answerable for his not escaping. Give him over bound, just as you receive him."He said: "I am not going to take Grettir. I have neither means nor money to keep him, nor was he captured on my property. So far as I can see much more trouble than credit is to be got by taking him or having anything to do with him. He shall not enter my house."Each of the bondis was asked, but all refused. Some witty person wrote a poem about these confabulations and called it "Grettir's Faring," adding many jests of his own for the dilectification of men. After parleying for a long time they all came to an agreement that they would not throw away their luck, and set to work to raise a gallows there and then in the forest upon which Grettir should hang. Their delight over this proposal was uproarious.
Then they saw three people riding along the valley from below, one of them in a dyed dress. They guessed that it must be Thorbjorg the mistress of Vatnsfjord on her way to the dairy, and so it was. Thorbjorg was a person of great magnificence, and tremendously wise. She was the leading personage of the district and managed everything when Vermund was away. She came up to where the crowd was gathered and was lifted from her horse; the bondis saluted her respectfully. She said:
"What is your meeting about? Who is this thick-necked man sitting there in bonds?"Grettir told his name and saluted her.
"What has moved you, Grettir," she said, "to commit violence upon my Thing-men?""I cannot overlook everything," he said. "I must be somewhere.""You are indeed unfortunate," she said, "that a pack of churls like these should have captured you and that none of them should have paid for it. What are you men going to do with him?"The bondis said that they were going to hoist him on to a gallows for his misdeeds.
She said: "It may be that Grettir has deserved it, but it will bring trouble upon you men of Isafjord if you take the life of a man so renowned and so highly connected as Grettir, ill-starred though he be. Now what will you do for your life, Grettir, if Igive it to you?""What do you wish me to do?"
"You shall swear never to commit any violence here in Isafjord;nor shall you take revenge upon those who have had a hand in capturing you."Grettir said it should be as she desired, and he was released.
He said it was the greatest effort of self-restraint that he ever made that he did not thrash the men who were there triumphing over him. Thorbjorg told him to come home with her and gave him a horse to ride on. So he went to Vatnsfjord and stayed there well cared for by the mistress until Vermund returned. She gained great renown from this deed through the district. Vermund was very much put out when he got home and asked why Grettir was there. Thorbjorg told him everything which had happened with the Isafjord men.
"To what does he owe it that you gave him his life?" he asked.
"Many reasons there were," she said. "The first is that you might be the more respected as a chief for having a wife who would dare to do such a thing. Next, his kinswoman Hrefna will surely say that I could not let him be slain; and thirdly, because he is in many respects a man of the highest worth.""You are a wise woman," he said, "in most things. I thank you for what you have done."Then he said to Grettir: "You have sold yourself very cheap, such a man of prowess as you are, to let yourself be taken by churls.
This is what always happens to those who cannot control themselves."Grettir then spoke a verse:
"Full was my cup in Isafjord when the old swine held me at ransom.""What were they going to do with you when they took you?" Vermund asked.
"To Sigar's lot my neck was destined when noble Thorbjorg came upon them.""Would they have hanged you then if they had been left to themselves?""My neck would soon have been in the noose, had she not wisely saved the bard.""Did she invite you to her home?""She bade me home with her to fare.
A steed she gave me, life and peace."
"Great will your life be and troublous," said Vermund; "but now you have learnt to beware of your foes. I cannot keep you here, for it would rouse the enmity of many powerful men against me.
Your best way is to seek your kinsmen; there are not many who will be willing to take you in if they can do anything else; nor are you one who will easily follow the will of another man."Grettir remained for a time in Vatnsfjord and went thence to the Western fjords and tried several of the leading men there, but something always happened to prevent their taking him in.
