by Tim Severin
Grettir must have sensed my presence. I was still taking in the depressing scene when he emerged from the shelter. I was shocked by his appearance. He looked haggard and worn, his hair grey and streaked, and his skin was grimed with soil and smoke. His eyes were red-rimmed from the foul air in the dugout and his clothes were tattered and squalid. I realised that I had not seen a freshwater spring on the island, and wondered how he and his companions found their drinking water. Washing clothes did not seem possible. Despite his grotesque and shabby appearance, I felt a surge of pride. There was no mistaking the self-assurance in the look my sworn brother directed at me as, for a moment, he failed to recognise who I was.
'Thorgils! By the Gods, it's Thorgilsl' he exclaimed and, stepping forward, gave me a great hug of affection. He stank, but it did not matter.
A moment later, he pulled back. 'How did you get here?' he asked in astonishment, which for a moment turned to suspicion. 'Who brought you? And how did you get past Glaum?' Glaum must have been the lazy sentinel I had stumbled on.
'All of Iceland knows that you are living on this island,' I replied, 'and it wasn't difficult to work out who your ferryman is. He dropped me off last night. As for Glaum, he doesn't take his duties very seriously.'
At that point, a second figure emerged from the dugout behind Grettir. It had to be his younger brother Illugi. He was at least ten years younger than Grettir, thin and undernourished looking, with black hair and a pale skin. He too was dressed in little better than rags. He said nothing, even when Grettir introduced me as his sworn brother, and I wondered if he was mistrustful of my intentions.
'Well, what do you think of my kingdom?' said Grettir, waving his arm expansively towards the southern horizon. The entrance to the dugout looked down the length of Skagafiord to the distant uplands on the mainland. To left and right extended the shores of the fiord, and rising behind them were the snow-streaked flanks of the mountains. 'Wonderful view, don't you agree, Thorgils? And practical too. From this spot I can see anyone approaching by boat down the length of the fiord, long before they reach the landing beach. It's impossible for anyone to sneak up on me.'
'At least in daylight,' I murmured.
'Yes,' said Grettir. 'No one has been bold enough to try a night landing previously, and in future I'll not trust that lazy servant Glaum to keep a look out. He's idle, but he amuses me with his chatter, and the Gods know, one needs a bit of humour and light-heartedness out here, especially in winter.'
'What do you live on?' I asked. 'Food must be very scarce.'
Grettir showed yellow teeth through his dirty tangle of beard. 'My neighbours kindly donate a sheep every couple of weeks,' he said. 'We ration ourselves, of course. There were about eighty animals on the island when we took over, and now we are down to about half that number.'
I did a quick mental calculation. Grettir had been living on Drang for at least a year, probably longer.
'There's one old ram who'll be the last one to be eaten. He's quite tame now. Visits the dugout every day and rubs his horns on the doorway, waiting to be petted.'
'What about water?' I asked.
'We gather rain, of which there is plenty, and when we get really short, there's a freshwater seep over on the east, in an overhang. It oozes a few cupfuls of water every day, enough to keep us alive.'
'Enough to keep four people alive?' I asked.
Grettir took my meaning at once. 'You mean you want to stay?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said. 'If you and Illugi have no objection.'
So it was that I became the fourth member of the outlaw community and for almost a year Drang Island was my home.
Grettir was right: there was no shortage of food on the island, even with an extra mouth to feed. We were able to fish from the beach whenever the winter storms abated, and Grettir and Illugi had already saved an ample store of dried fish and the smoked carcasses of seabirds. For vegetables we ate a dark green weed which grew luxuriantly on the slopes too steep for the sheep to graze. The succulent leaves of this weed — I do not know its name — had a pleasant salty taste, and gave welcome variety to our diet. We had neither bread nor whey, the staple of the farmers on the mainland, but we never went hungry.
Our real struggle was how to keep warm and dry. The roof of the dugout kept out the rain, but the interior was constantly damp from the wetness rising up through the soil and we found it impossible to keep our garments dry. The fireplace was at the back of the dugout against the great boulder so that the stone reflected every bit of precious heat. But the ever-present problem was the scarcity of firewood. We depended on the chance discovery of driftwood. Each day one or other of us would descend the ladders and make a circuit of the island's narrow beach, hoping that the sea had brought us its bounty. Salvaging a good-sized log suitable for firewood was a greater cause for satisfaction than bringing back a string of freshly caught fish. When we found a log or dead branch, however small, we used ropes to hoist it back up the cliff and put it to dry in a sheltered spot. Then we would use an axe to chop the driftwood into kindling or shape a log to keep the fire at a gentle glow all night.
Grettir and I spent many hours in conversation, sometimes seated in the dugout, but more usually out in the open air where our discussions could not be overheard. He confessed to me that he was feeling more and more worn down by his long period of outlawry. 'I've lived over two-thirds of my life as an outlaw,' he said. 'I've scarcely known any other condition. I've never married, never been able to drop my guard in case there is someone ready to kill me.'
'But you've also become the most famous man in Iceland,' I said, trying to cheer him up. 'Everyone knows of Grettir the Strong. Long ago you told me that your reputation was all that mattered to you and that you wanted to be remembered. You've certainly achieved that. The Icelanders will never forget you.'
'Yes, but at what cost?' he replied. 'I've become a victim of my own pride. You'll remember how I swore no one would ever drive me away from Iceland by sending me into exile. Looking back, I see that was a mistake. I trapped myself here with those words. I often regret that I have travelled no further than Norway. How I would have loved to see the foreign lands you have known — Vinland, Greenland, Ireland, London, the shores of the Baltic Sea. I envy you. If I were to travel abroad now, people would say that I am running away. I have to stay here for ever, and that means until someone catches up with me when I am weak or old and kills me.'
Grettir looked out across the fiord. 'I have a premonition that this view is the one I will live and die with. That I will finish out my time on this small island.' Disconsolately he threw a pebble over the cliff edge. 'I feel cursed,' he went on. 'Everything I do seems to have the reverse effect of what I intend. If I start something for the best of reasons, it usually turns out quite differently. People are hurt or harmed by my actions. I never intended to kill that young man who insulted me in the church in Norway, and when I burned those unfortunates in that shore house it was largely their fault. If they had not been so drunk, they would have escaped the fire, which they themselves started.'
'What about that woman over at the farm? I'm told you raped her.'
Grettir looked down at the ground and mumbled his answer. 'I don't know what came over me. It was a black rage, not something I'm proud of. Sometimes I think that living like a hunted animal makes you into an animal. If you live too long away from normal company, you lose the habits of normal behaviour.'
'What about your brother Illugi? Why don't you send him away from here? He doesn't have to be bound to your fate.'
'I've tried a dozen times to persuade Illugi to go back home,' Grettir replied, 'but he is too much like me. He's stubborn. He sees my outlawry as a matter of personal pride. No one is going to dictate to him or his family what they should do and he has a strong sense of family. That's how we were brought up. Not even my mother wants me to surrender. When Illugi and I said goodbye to her before coming here, she said that she never expected to see either of us alive again, bu
t she was pleased we were protecting the family's good name.'
'Then what about Glaum?' I said. 'What part does he play in all this? To me he seems nothing more than a lazy lout, a jester.'
'We met Glaum on our way to the island,' Grettir said. 'It was pure chance. Glaum is a nobody. He has no home, no land, nothing. But he's amusing, and his company can be entertaining. He volunteered to come to the island with us and until he decides to leave I'm willing to let him stay. He tries to make himself useful, collecting firewood, helping haul up the ladders, doing some fishing, generally being about the place.'
'You're not concerned that Glaum might try to attack you, like Redbeard, hoping to gain the bounty money?
'No. Glaum's not like that. He's too lazy, too weak. He's not a bounty hunter.'
'But there's something foreboding about Glaum,' I said. 'I can't define what it is, but I have a feeling that he represents misfortune. I would be happier if you sent him away.'
'Maybe I will,' said Grettir, 'but not yet.'
'Perhaps matters will improve,' I suggested. 'I've heard it said that if a man survives outlawry for a span of twenty years then the sentence is complete. In a couple of years that will be the case for you.'
'I think not,' Grettir answered gloomily. 'Something is bound to go wrong before then. My luck is dire and my enemies will never give up. My reputation and the reward for my death or capture means that any young hothead will have a try at killing me or taking me prisoner.'
His forebodings came true in the early spring. This was the season when the farmers would normally bring out their sheep to Drang and leave them there for the summer grazing. Doubtless this prompted them, under Thorbjorn Ongul's leadership, to launch a plan to retake the island. A young man from Norway, Haering by name, had arrived in the area. Like everyone else, he soon heard about Grettir living on Drang Island and of the huge reward being offered for his death. He contacted Thorbjorn Ongul and told him that he was an expert climber of cliffs. Haering boasted that there was no cliff which he could not scale single-handed and without ropes. He suggested that if he could be landed on Drang without Grettir knowing, he would surprise the outlaw and either kill or wound him so severely that the others would be able to storm the island. Thorbjorn Ongul was shrewd. He decided that the best way to approach Drang without alerting Grettir's suspicions would be in a large, ten-oared boat with a cargo of live sheep. From his boat he would call up to Grettir, asking for permission to land the animals. Ongul calculated that Grettir would agree because he had already depleted the flock on the island. Meanwhile Haering would climb the cliffs on the opposite side of Drang and creep up on Grettir from behind.
Grettir and I worked out Ongul’s stratagem only after it had failed and it was a narrow escape. We saw the ten-oared boat approaching from a great distance down the fiord, and watched as it slowly drew closer. Soon we could see the four or five men aboard and the dozen or so sheep. Haering himself was not visible. He must have crouched down and hidden among the animals. Ongul was at the helm and steered for the landing place at the foot of the ladder leading up to the summit. But he took a slightly unusual course and, at the time, we failed to understand why. There was a short interval when the boat was so close under the cliffs and passing round the end of the island that it was lost to sight from anyone standing at the cliff top. This was the moment when Haering must have slipped overboard and swum ashore. Moments later Ongul and his boat reappeared in view, the oarsmen rested on their oars, and Ongul shouted up to Grettir, asking him to agree to let more sheep graze on the island. Grettir called back down, and the negotiations began. Grettir, usually so alert, was hoodwinked. He warned Ongul that the moment anyone tried to climb the ladders, the upper ladder would be withdrawn. Meanwhile, with a great deal of deliberate fumbling, the men in the boat began to get the sheep ready to be hoisted.
Unknown to us up on the summit, Haering had begun to climb. The young man was inching his way up the cliff face by a route which no one had attempted or even imagined possible. It was, by any standards, an extraordinary feat of agility. Unaided, the young man managed to find one handhold after another. He hauled himself upward past the ledges of nesting seabirds. Sometimes the rock face leaned out so far that Haering was obliged to cling on, hanging by his fingers as he searched for a grip, then clambered upwards like a spider. His feet, to prevent them slipping, were clad only in thick woollen socks, which he had wetted to give them a better grip.
I know about the wet socks because it was I who first saw Haering after he had hauled himself over the topmost rim of the cliff. It was the old grey ram which alerted me. Grettir, Illugi and Glaum were clustered at the top of the ladder, looking down at
Ongul and his farmer colleagues as they discussed the landing of the sheep. Their attention was completely distracted. By contrast, I had deliberately stayed back from the cliff edge so I could not be seen from below. No one apart from the farmer who had brought me to Drang knew that I was on the island, and it seemed a good idea to keep my presence a secret. So I noticed the sudden movement among the sheep grazing near the cliff edge opposite where Grettir was standing. The animals raised their heads from grazing, and stood stock still, staring out into space. They were alarmed and I saw them tense as if to flee. The old grey ram, however, trotted confidently forward as though he expected to be petted. A moment later I saw a hand rise over the cliff edge, as if from the void, and feel around until it found a grip. Then Haering's head appeared. Slowly, very slowly, he eased himself over the rim of the cliff until he was lying face down flat on the grass. That was when I saw the wet socks and noted that, to lighten himself for the climb, his only weapon was a small axe tied with a leather thong to his back.
I gave a low whistle to warn the others. Grettir and Illugi both looked round and immediately saw the danger. As Haering got to his feet, Grettir said something to Illugi, and it was the younger man who turned and advanced on a now-exhausted Haering. His older brother stayed behind in case his great strength was needed, with Glaum's help, to haul up the wooden ladder.
Poor Haering, I felt sorry for him. He was utterly spent by the spectacular climb, and instead of finding Grettir and Illugi alone on the island, he now found himself confronted by four men, and without any advantage of surprise. He unslung the axe. He may have been a superb mountaineer, but he was an inexpert warrior. He held the axe loosely in from of him, and when Illugi struck at him with a sword the axe was knocked spinning out of his grasp.
Haering offered no further resistance. There was something manic about Illugi's headlong rush at the unarmed young man. Illugi may have felt that his refuge had been violated, or maybe he had never killed a man before and was desperate to finish the job. He ran at Haering wildly, swinging his sword. Unnerved, the Norwegian turned and fled, running in his socks over the turf. But there was nowhere to go. Illugi chased his prey grimly, still cutting and slashing with his sword as Haering dodged and turned. He ran towards the boulder which masked the entrance to the dugout. Perhaps he was seeking to shelter behind it, but he did not know the lie of the land. Beyond the rock the ground suddenly fell in a steep slope at the far end of which was the edge of the cliff. From there to the sea was a sheer drop of four hundred feet. Haering ran headlong down the slope towards the precipice. Perhaps he thought his speed would carry him far enough out. Perhaps he panicked. Maybe he wanted to die by his own hand and not on Illugi's sword. Whatever his intention was, he ran straight to the edge of the cliff and without hesitating flung himself outward . . . and continued running, as though still on solid ground. His legs and arms flailed as he dropped from view.
I joined Illugi at the cliff edge, crouching cautiously on the ground and then crawling forward on my belly, so that my head looked out over the vast drop. Far below, the cliff climber's body lay broken and twisted on the beach. To my right Ongul's people had seen the tragedy and were already rowing to the spot to retrieve the corpse.
No other attempt was made to dislodge us from Drang duri
ng the next three months. Probably Haering's death had shocked the farmers who supported Ongul and anyhow they had their summer chores to do. Grettir, Illugi, Glaum and I stayed on the island. The friendly farmer visited us only twice, bringing us news from the mainland. The main event was the death of Snorri Godi that winter, full of years and honour, and his son Thorodd — the man whom Grettir had spared - had succeeded to the chieftainship. I wondered if Thorodd had also inherited charge of my fire ruby which I had left in his father's safe keeping and if Snorri had told him of its history.
My sworn brother reacted glumly to the news of Snorri Godi's death. 'So vanishes my last hope of obtaining justice,' he said to me as we sat in our favourite spot near the cliff edge. 'I know that Snorri refused to take up my case at the Althing when we first arrived back in Iceland and you went to see him on my behalf. But as long as Snorri was alive, I nursed a secret hope that he would change his mind. After all, I spared his son Thorodd when he tried to kill me and win his father's approval. But now it is too late. Snorri was the only man in Iceland who had the prestige and law skill to have my sentence of skogarmadur annulled.'
After a short pause Grettir turned to face me and said earnestly, 'Thorgils, I want you to promise me something: I want you to give me your word that you will make something exceptional of your own life. If my life is cut short at the hands of my enemies, I don't want you to mourn me uselessly. I want you to go out and do the things that my ill luck has never allowed me to do. Imagine that my fylgja, my other spirit, has attached itself to you, my sworn brother, and is at your shoulder, always present, seeing what you see, experiencing what you experience. A man should live his life seeking out his opportunities and fulfilling them. Not like me, cornered here on this island and becoming famous for surviving in the face of adversity.'
