3

The Journey to Norway and the Adventure of the Grave Mound

Asmund knew a sea captain who had a ship of his Aown. When Asmund learned that he would soon be sailing to Norway, he sent to him and asked him if he would take Grettir with him. The captain answered that he had heard that Grettir was not easy to get along with but that out of friendship for Asmund he would take him.

Grettir then prepared to leave Iceland. But when he came to go, he found that his father was not giving him very much to see him on his way, just the food he would need on the voyage and some wadmal, the homespun cloth that the Icelanders often used for trading instead of money.

Grettir asked his father if he would not at least give him a weapon, but Asmund said, “You have never obeyed me. And if I give you a weapon, I fear what use you will put it to. So I will not give you one.”

“‘No favor requires no thanks,’” said Grettir, and so they parted with little love between them.

There were many who wished Grettir a good voyage, but few wished him a safe return. Of these few, his mother, Asdis, was one. For in spite of all the difficulties he had caused, she still loved him very much. She went with him along the road, and when it was time to part, she said, “You do not go forth as I would wish, my son. But the worst of it is that you have no weapon, for my heart tells me that you will need one.”

Then she took from under her cloak a goodly and well-wrought sword and gave it to him, saying, “This was the sword of Jokull, my father’s father, who was among the bravest of the men of Vatnsdal. It won him many victories. May it serve you as well.”

“It is easy to see,” said Grettir, “that they are right who say, ‘Best to son is mother still.’”

He thanked her warmly and said he would treasure it and never dishonor it. Asdis embraced him and gave him her blessing, and he left her and rode south to the coast where the ship was being loaded.

The captain made him welcome, and when the cargo was all aboard, they put to sea. They ran into heavy weather soon after they left port, and the captain said that this was a bad sign and that a voyage that began so badly was likely to end badly. Grettir thought this sounded like his father and paid no attention to it. But as they drew near the coast of Norway, the weather became even worse, and in the dark of night the ship struck a rock, and those aboard her had barely enough time to go ashore before she sank.

In the morning they saw that they were on a small island and that there was a much larger island nearby. Those who knew that part recognized the larger island as Haramsey, which lies off the west coast of Norway.

The most important landowner on Haramsey was a man named Thorfinn. When word was brought to him that a ship had been wrecked nearby, he at once put out in one of his boats to see if he could be of help. He brought Grettir and the others back to his house. They stayed there for about a week. Then the sea captain and his crew went off on a ship that was sailing south, but Grettir stayed on as Thorfinn’s guest.

Since Thorfinn had large holdings, he was very busy about his estate, but Grettir was no more interested in this than he had been in the managing of the estate at home. However he became good friends with a man whose name, like that of the youth with whom he had fought when they were playing ball, was Audun. This Audun lived a few miles from Thorfinn’s stead and Grettir went to visit him almost every day.

One evening, as he was about to return to Thorfinn’s house, he noticed a mound on a nearby headland that seemed to glow in the failing light.

“If we saw such a thing in Iceland,” said Grettir, “we would say there was a treasure buried there.”

“If there is a treasure,” said Audun, “it is one that had better be left alone.”

“Why so?” asked Grettir.

That, Audun told him, was the howe, or grave-mound, of Kar the Old, father of Thorfinn. Once there had been many farmers on Haramsey. But after Kar died, he had not lain quietly in his grave. His ghost had walked and had frightened away all the other farmers, so that now the whole island belonged to Thorfinn.

“You have done well to tell me this,” said Grettir. “Have digging tools ready, and we shall look into the matter tomorrow.”

Audun told him that Thorfinn would not like this, but Grettir said he would risk his anger.

Grettir returned the next day, and he and Audun went to the howe, climbed to the top, and began digging down. It was dusk before they reached the beams that roofed the inner chamber. Grettir broke through them and let down a rope. Audun begged him not to go into the howe, especially at night, but Grettir told him to watch the rope and slid down it.

It was very dark in the howe, and the air was heavy and not pleasant. Grettir began groping about in the darkness. The first thing he felt were large bones, the bones of a horse that had been slain and put in the howe with Kar the Old. Then he came upon a throne on which there seemed to be a man sitting. And before the throne was a small but heavy chest with a treasure of gold and silver heaped about it.

Grettir carried the chest to the rope, and as he put it down, he felt himself gripped by a strong hand and knew that the howe dweller was upon him. Now began a fearsome struggle. Back and forth they staggered, knocking over the throne and smashing all that lay about them. Several times was Grettir forced to his knees. But finally, putting forth all his strength, Grettir overthrew the howe dweller, and drawing the sword of Jokull, he cut off his head and laid it between his thighs. For this, he knew, was the way to keep a ghost from walking.

Spent and sore, Grettir carried the rest of the treasure to the rope and called to Audun. But, having heard the noise of the struggle and believing Grettir to have been killed, Audun had fled. Grettir climbed the rope, drew the treasure up after him, and carried it to Thorfinn’s house.

Thorfinn and all the others were at supper, and Thorfinn looked at Grettir sharply and asked him why he was so late.

“Pressing things may hap at any time, even at dusk,” said Grettir, and he laid the treasure he had taken from the howe on the table before Thorfinn.

Thorfinn’s eyes widened when he saw it, and he asked Grettir whence it had come, and Grettir told him.

“Light do you make of it,” said Thorfinn. “No man before you was so hardy as to break into the howe and face the wrath of him who dwells there. But since I hold it wrong to bury treasure in the earth when living man may use it, and since you have brought it to me, I blame you not. Indeed, I thank you. And I thank you most of all for this”—and he held up a short sword—“for it is an heirloom of my house and much prized.”

“And prized it should be,” said Grettir, “for it is the fairest weapon I have ever seen. It is the one thing in all the treasure that I misliked giving you.”

“Well, as I told you, it is an heirloom,” said Thorfinn, “though it never came into my hands. So you would have to perform an even greater deed than conquering the howe dweller before I would give it to you.”

“As to that,” said Grettir, “that may yet be.”

And so Thorfinn kept the sword and the treasure. Then the winter drew in, and the weather became cold and bad for voyaging, and Grettir stayed on with Thorfinn.