The Story:
Grettir the strong is descended from Onund, a Viking famed for enemies killed in war and the taking of booty from towns plundered on far sea raids. In a battle at Hafrsfjord, Onund loses a leg and is thereafter known as Onund Treefoot. His wife is Aesa, the daughter of Ofeig. Thrand, a great hero, is his companion in arms. During a time of great trouble in Norway, the two heroes sail to Iceland to be free of injustice in their homeland, where the unscrupulous can rob without fear of redress. Onund lives in quiet and plenty in the new land, and his name becomes renowned, for he is valiant. At last he dies. His sons fight after his death, and his lands are divided.
Grettir of the line of Onund is born at Biarg. As a child he shows strange intelligence. He quarrels constantly with Asmund Longhair, his father, and he is very lazy, never doing anything cheerfully or without urging. When he is fourteen years old, grown big in body, he kills Skeggi in a quarrel over a provision bag that falls from his horse, and for that deed his father pays blood money to the kinsmen of Skeggi. Then the Lawman declares that he must leave Iceland for three years. In that way the long outlawry of Grettir begins.
Grettir sets sail for Norway. The ship is wrecked on rocks off the Norwegian coast, but all get safely ashore on land that belongs to Thorfinn, a wealthy landsman of the district. Grettir makes his home with him for a time. At Yuletide, Thorfinn, with most of his household, goes to a merrymaking and leaves Grettir to look after the farm. In Thorfinn’s absence, a party of berserks, or raiders, led by Thorir and Ogmund, come to rob and lay waste to the district. Grettir tricks them by locking them in a storehouse. When they break through the wooden walls, Grettir, armed with sword and spear, kills Thorir and Ogmund and puts the rest to flight. Sometime before this adventure, he entered the tomb of Karr-the-Old, father of Thorfinn, a long-dead chieftain who guarded a hidden treasure. For his brave deed in killing the berserks, Thorfinn gives him an ancient sword from the treasure hoard of Karr-the-Old.
Next Grettir kills a great bear that was carrying off the sheep. In doing so he incurs the wrath of Bjorn, who is jealous of Grettir’s strength and bravery. Then Grettir kills Bjorn and is summoned before Jarl Sveinn. Friends of Bjorn plot to take Grettir’s life. After he kills two of his enemies, his friends save him from the wrath of the jarl, who wishes to banish him. His term of outlawry ends, Grettir sails back to Iceland in the spring.
At this time in Iceland, young Thorgils Maksson, Asmund’s kinsman, is slain in a quarrel over a whale, and Asmund takes up the feud against those who killed him. The murderers are banished.
When Grettir returns, Asmund gives him the welcome that is his due because of his fame as a brave hero. Shortly after his return, Grettir battles with some men after a horse fight. The struggle is halted by a man named Thorbjorn Oxmain. The feud would be forgotten if Thorbjorn Oxmain’s kinsman, Thorbjorn Slowcoach, did not sneer at the hero.
Word comes that a fiend took possession of the corpse of Glam, a shepherd. At night Glam ravages the countryside. He can find no man with whom he can prove his strength, so Grettir goes to meet Glam. They struggle in the house of Thorhall and rip down beams and rafters in their angry might. At last Glam falls exhausted. Defeated, he predicts that Grettir will have no greater strength and less honor in arms from that day on and that he will grow afraid of the dark. Grettir cuts off Glam’s head and burns the body to destroy the evil spirit that possesses the dead shepherd.
Grettir decides to return to Norway. Among the passengers on the boat is Thorbjorn Slowcoach; they fight, and Grettir kills his foe. The travelers land on a barren shore where they are without fire to warm themselves, and Grettir swims across the cove to get burning brands at an inn where the sons of Thorir of Gard, an Icelandic chieftain, are holding a drunken feast. He has to fight to get the fire he wants; in the struggle, hot coals set fire to the straw on the inn floor and the house burns. Charged with deliberately setting fire to the inn and burning those within, Grettir goes to lay the matter before the king. To prove his innocence of the charge of willful burning, he is sentenced to undergo trial by fire in the church, but the ordeal ends when Grettir becomes angry and throws a bystander into the air. The king then banishes him from Norway, but because no ships can sail to Iceland before the spring, Grettir is allowed to remain in the country that winter. He lives some time with a man named Einar, on a lonely farm to which comes the berserk Snaekoll, a wild man who pretends great frenzy during his lawless raids. Grettir seizes him in his mad fit and kills the robber with his own sword. Grettir falls in love with Einar’s beautiful daughter, but he knows that Einar will never give his child to a man of Grettir’s reputation. Giving up his suit, he goes to stay with his half brother, Thorsteinn Dromund. They are men of the same blood, and Thorsteinn swears to avenge Grettir if he is ever killed.
Grettir’s father Asmund dies. On his deathbed he says that little good will come of his son. Grettir’s time of bad luck in Iceland begins. Thorbjorn Oxmain kills Atli, Grettir’s brother, in revenge for the slaying of Thorbjorn Slowcoach, and Thorir of Gard, hearing that his sons were killed in the burning of the inn, charges Grettir with their murder before the court of the Althing. By the time Grettir returns, he is proclaimed an outlaw throughout Iceland. He has little worry over his outlawry from the inn burning. Determined to avenge his brother, he goes alone to Thorbjorn Oxmain’s farm and kills both the man and his son. Grettir’s mother is delighted with his deed, but she predicts that Grettir will not live freely to enjoy his victory. Thorir of Gard and Thorodd, Thorbjorn Oxmain’s kinsman, each put a price of three silver marks upon his head. Soon afterward Grettir is captured by some farmers, but he is released by a wise woman named Thorbjorg.
Avoided by most of his former friends, who will no longer help him, Grettir goes far north to find a place to live. In the forest, he meets another outlaw named Grim, but a short time later, he is forced to kill his companion because Grim intends to kill Grettir for the reward. About that time there is a fear of the dark growing upon Grettir, as Glam prophesied. Thorir of Gard hires Redbeard, another outlaw, to kill Grettir, but Grettir discovers the outlaw’s plans and kills him instead. At last Grettir realizes that he cannot take any forest men into his trust, and yet he is afraid to live alone because of his fear of the dark.
Thorir of Gard attacks Grettir with eighty men, but the outlaw is able to hold them off for a time. Unknown to him, a friend named Hallmund attacks Thorir’s men from the rear, and the attempt to capture Grettir fails. Nevertheless, Grettir can not stay long in any place, for all men turn against him. Hallmund is treacherously slain for the aid he gave Grettir; as he dies, he hopes that the outlaw will avenge his death.
One night a troll woman attacks a traveler named Gest in the room where he lies sleeping. They struggle all night, but at last Gest is able to cut off the monster’s right arm. Then Gest reveals himself as Grettir. Steinvor of Sandhauger gives birth to a boy whom many call Grettir’s son, but he dies when he is seventeen years old and leaves no personal saga.
Thorodd then tries to gain favor by killing Grettir, but the outlaw soon overcomes him and refuses to kill his enemy. Grettir goes north once more, but his fear of the dark increases so that he can no longer live alone, even to save his life. At last, with his youngest brother, Illugi, and a servant, he settles on Drangey, an island that has no inlet so that men have to climb to its grassy summit by rope ladders. There Grettir, who was an outlaw for some sixteen years, is safe for a time, because no one can climb the steep cliffs to attack him. For several years he and his companions live on the sheep that were put there to graze and on eggs and birds. His enemies try in vain to lure him from the island. At last an old woman puts magic runes upon a piece of driftwood that floats to the island. When Grettir attempts to chop the log, his ax slips, gashing his leg. He feels that his end is near, for the wound becomes swollen and painful.
Thorbjorn Angle, who paid the old woman to cast a spell upon the firewood, leads an attack upon the island while Grettir lies near death. Grettir is already dying when he strikes his last blows at his enemies. Illugi and the servant die with him. After Thorbjorn cuts off Grettir’s head as proof of the outlaw’s death, Steinn the Lawman decrees that the murderer cut off the head of a man already dead and that he cannot collect the reward because he used witchcraft to overcome Grettir. Outlawed for his deed, Thorbjorn goes to Constantinople, where he enlists in the emperor’s guard. There Thorsteinn Dromund follows him and cuts off the murderer’s head with a sword Grettir took years before from the treasure hoard of Karr-the-Old.
Critical Evaluation:
There are several types of sagas: family sagas, legendary sagas, and sagas of notable individuals. The Saga of Grettir the Strong is one of the longest, and possibly the best known of the third category. It is also one of the last of the great sagas, by an author thoroughly familiar with the saga tradition. He makes reference to earlier sagas throughout the work. Grettir’s story is semihistorical; locations are nearly all identifiable, and many characters also appear in other sagas. The overall feel is realistic, in spite of a number of supernatural beings and events. These may seem highly improbable to the modern reader, but the direction of the story is determined by Grettir’s character, not by the specific incidents, and these are all revealing of his nature, whether natural or supernatural.
The Saga of Grettir the Strong begins with Grettir’s ancestors. This section takes up thirteen of the ninety-three chapters and centers on Grettir’s great-grandfather Onund Tree-Foot. Onund is a Viking of the heathen era, who loses a leg during a turbulent and violent career. In old age he exchanges a good farm in Norway for the harsh climate of Iceland to escape the repressive rule of Harald Hairfair, the first king of Norway. Grettir is much like his ancestor, and even more violent and unruly, but he has no Iceland to which to escape. The Viking era is dying, and Christianity conquered the North. Grettir is an anachronism in a world becoming ever more settled and civilized.
The author is a master of characterization. One sees Grettir’s cruelty and his impatience with authority and routine in his childhood rebellion against his father, especially when he mutilates the favorite horse he is assigned to tend. It is not only rebellion against his father but also impatience with the horse’s leisurely grazing while Grettir waits in the cold. He is not always the instigator, but he seldom makes a situation better, and he insists upon satisfying his honor even when he has every reason to accept an offer of peace. Grettir’s behavior often seems thuggish, and yet he is honorable, intelligent, resourceful, and witty. He is physically big, but he has a big spirit as well. Though an outlaw himself, he is unlike the several outlaws he befriends and who try to murder him for the reward.
An important concept of the Viking age is “luck,” and one of the monsters Grettir kills predicts that his luck will henceforth grow worse. Many events in Grettir’s later career seem unlucky, but again fate is character. Grettir seldom ameliorates bad fortune or takes advantage of good. For example, he swims across an icy estuary to get fire for the merchants with whom he is traveling. A scuffle takes place at the house he goes to for fire, and the people inside are burned. The merchants then accuse Grettir of murder. He is attacked first, but he might have retreated and tried to explain that, in spite of his appearance, he is not a troll and not there for an evil motive. The next day, when the merchants find the burned house, Grettir could stress his innocence. After all that, he is given a chance by King Olaf to clear himself by ordeal, but he loses his temper in the church and commits an act of violence so that the trial cannot take place, and he cannot clear himself. At the end, when terms are offered to Grettir and he refuses them, a witch calls him luckless because, “there are few things which lead to more certain disaster than not to want what is good.” She later contributes to his downfall by magic, but the ultimate cause is not magic, but Grettir’s unwillingness to seize an opportunity.
As the story progresses, Grettir’s sphere of action narrows. He is outlawed in Norway, returns to Iceland, and is immediately outlawed there. As fewer and fewer dare or are willing to take him in, he is reduced to robbing travelers, something he would not do earlier. At last he takes refuge with his brother and a slave on a small island with cliffs all around. Here he shows his growth in maturity by his patience in adversity, by his love for his brother, and by his surprising tolerance for his lazy and irresponsible slave. When he kills a lamb to eat, he is deeply touched by the mother ewe’s grief, a considerable advance in his humanity from his boyhood cruelty to animals. He remains on the island for more than two years, but the witch’s charm causes him to wound himself in the leg. As he lies near death, his enemies finally manage to scale the cliff and to kill him.
The last eleven chapters form a sort of prologue in which Grettir’s one surviving brother follows the killer to Constantinople and avenges Grettir. He then marries a lady of that city and returns to Norway wealthy. At last, to expiate their sins, they go to Rome, set up separate huts, and finish their lives as hermits. They end, like Grettir, in isolation, but theirs is an isolation of peace with their world and with themselves.
In spite of its understated tone and seemingly episodic structure, The Saga of Grettir the Strong is a masterpiece of construction, with its many, seemingly random episodes contributing to an understanding of Grettir’s motivations and character. It is also a sophisticated exploration of such themes as the collective and the individual, Christianity and heathenism, luck and character, freedom and responsibility, honor and social obligation. Compared to the conventional novel—with its descriptions, atmosphere, analyses of character and action, and elaborately developed scenes—the saga formula may seem bare, objective, and austere. Nevertheless, in terms of literary excellence and sophistication, the best sagas can stand with the best of the world’s novels, and The Saga of Grettir the Strong makes a strong showing.