When they reached the island Grettir thought it looked quite pleasant; it was all overgrown with grass and had steep cliffs down to the sea so that no one could get on to it except where the ladders were.  If the upper ladder was pulled up it was impossible for any one to get on to the island.  There was also a large crag full of sea birds in the summer, and there were eighty sheep in the island belonging to the bondis, mostly rams and ewes, which were meant for slaughter.

There Grettir quietly settled down.  He had been fifteen or sixteen years an outlaw, so Sturla the son of Thord has recorded.

CHAPTER LXX

THE PEOPLE OF SKAGAFJORD

When Grettir came to Drangey the following chiefs were in Skagafjord: 

Hjalti lived at Hof in Hjaltadal, the son of Thord, the son of Hjalti, the son of Thord Skalp.  He was a great chief, very distinguished and very popular.  His brother was named Thorbjorn Angle, a big man, strong and hardy and rather quarrelsome.  Thord their father had married in his old age, and his then wife was not the mother of these two.  She was very much against her stepsons, especially Thorbjorn, because he was intractable and headstrong.  One day when he was playing at “tables”, his stepmother came up and saw that he was playing at “hnettafl”; they played with big peg pieces.  She considered that very lazy of him and spoke some words to which he answered hastily.  She took up the piece and struck him on the cheek bone with the peg, and it glanced into his eye which hung down on his cheek.  He started up and handled her mercilessly so that she was confined to her bed and soon afterwards died; they say that she was pregnant at the time.  After that he became a regular ruffian.  He took over his property and went first to live in Vidvik.

Halldor the son of Thorgeir, the son of Thord of Hofdi, lived at Hof in Hofdastrand.  He married Thordis the daughter of Thord, the sister of Hjalti and Thorbjorn Angle.  Halldor was a worthy bondi and wealthy.

Bjorn was the name of a man who lived at Haganes in Fljot, a friend of Halldor of Hof, and the two held together in every dispute.

Tungu-Steinn dwelt at Steinsstadir.  He was the son of Bjorn, the son of Ofeig Thinbeard, the son of Crow-Hreidar, to whom Eirik of Guddal gave Tunga below Skalamyr.  He was a man of renown.

Eirik was the son of Holmgang-Starri, the son of Eirik of Guddal, the son of Hroald, the son of Geirmund Straightbeard.  He lived at Hof in Guddal.

All these were men of high rank.  Two brothers dwelt at a place called Breida in Slettahlid, both named Thord.  They were very strong men, but peaceable.

All the men now named had a share in Drangey.  It is said that the island was owned by no fewer than twenty men, and none of them would part with his share to the others.  The largest share belonged to the sons of Thord since they were the richest.