He consented, and said that she had long given him counsel for his good.  The “double month” of the summer was now approaching.  One fine day the old woman said to Angle:  “The weather is now calm and bright; I will that you go to Drangey and pick a quarrel with Grettir.  I will go with you and learn what caution is in his words.  I shall have some surety when I see how far they are prospering, and then I will speak over them such words as I please.”

Angle said:  “Let us not go to Drangey.  It is always worse in my mind when I leave that place than when I arrive.”

The woman said:  “I will not help you if you will not let me do as I like.”

“Far be that from me, my foster-mother.  I have said that I will go there a third time, that something may come of it for us.”

“You may venture it,” she said, “much labour will you have before Grettir is laid in the earth; often your lot will be doubtful and hard will it go with you before it is finished.  And yet you are so bound that somehow you must get yourself out of it.”

Then Thorbjorn Angle had a ten-oared boat manned and went on board with eleven men.  The woman was with them and they rowed out to Drangey.  When the brothers saw them coming they came forward to the ladder and began once more to talk about their case.  Thorbjorn said he had come once more to hear their answer whether Grettir would leave the place.  He said he would treat the destruction of his property and Grettir’s stay there as a light thing, provided they parted in peace.  Grettir said he had no intention of coming to any terms about his going away.  “I have often told you,” he said, “that there is no use in talking to me about it.  You may do whatever you please; I mean to stay here and abide what happens.”

Thorbjorn saw that his end would not be gained this time, and said:  “I knew very well with what men of Hel I had to do.  It is most likely that some days will pass before I come here again.”

“It would not hurt me if you never came at all,” said Grettir.

The woman was lying in the stern sheets covered up with clothes.  Then she began to stir and said: 

“These men are brave and unfortunate; there is much difference between you; you offer them good and they refuse everything.  There are few more certain tokens of evil than not to know how to accept the good.  Now I say this of you, Grettir, that you be deprived of health, of all good luck and fortune, of all protection and counsel, ever the more the longer you live.  I wish that your days may be less happy in the future than they have been in the past.”

When Grettir heard that he started violently and said:  “What fiend is that in the ship with them?”

Illugi said:  “I think that must be the old woman, Thorbjorn’s foster-mother.”

“Curse the hag!” he said.  “I could have thought of nothing worse!  Nothing that was ever said startled me more than her words, and I know that some evil will befall me from her and her spells.  She shall have something to remind her of her visit here.”