GRETTIR KILLS SKEGGI AND IS OUTLAWED FOR THREE YEARS

Thorkell Krafla now began to grow very old.  He was a great chieftain and held the Vatnsdal Godord.  He was a close friend of Asmund Longhair, as befitted the near relations in which they stood to each other.  He had, therefore, been in the habit of riding every year in the spring to Bjarg to visit his kinsmen there, and he did so in the spring which followed the events just related.  Asmund and Asdis received him with both hands.  He stayed there three nights and many a matter did the kinsmen discuss together.  Thorkell asked Asmund what his heart told him about his sons, and what professions they were likely to follow.  Asmund said that Atli would probably be a great landowner, very careful and wealthy.

“A useful man, like yourself,” said Thorkell.  “But what can you tell me of Grettir?”

“I can only say,” he replied, “that he will be a strong man; but headstrong and quarrelsome.  A heavy trial has he been to me.”

“That does not look very promising, kinsman!” said Thorkell.  “But how are we to arrange our journey to the Thing in the summer?”

“I am getting difficult to move,” he said.  “I would rather stay at home.”

“Would you like Atli to go for you?”

“I don’t think I can spare him,” Asmund said, “because of the work and the provisioning.  Grettir will not do anything.  But he has quite wit enough to carry out the duties at the Thing on my behalf under your guidance.”

“It shall be as you please,” said Thorkell.

Then Thorkell made himself ready and rode home; Asmund dismissed him with presents.

A little later Thorkell journeyed to the Thing with sixty men.  All the men of his godord went with him.  They passed through Bjarg, where Grettir joined them.  They rode South through the heath called Tvidaegra.  There was very little grazing to be had in the hills, so they rode quickly past them into the cultivated land.  When they reached Fljotstunga they thought it was time to sleep, so they took the bits from their horses and turned them loose with their saddles.  They lay there well on into the day, and when they woke began to look for their horses.  Every horse had gone off in a different direction and some had been rolling.  Grettir could not find his horse at all.  The custom was at that time that men should find their own provisions at the Thing, and most of them carried their sacks over their saddles.  When Grettir found his horse its saddle was under its belly, and the sack of provisions gone.  He searched about but could not find it.  Then he saw a man running very fast and asked him who he was.  He said his name was Skeggi and that he was a man from Ass in Vatnsdal in the North.

“I am travelling with Thorkell,” he said.  “I have been careless and lost my provision-bag.”

“Alone in misfortune is worst.  I also have lost my stock of provisions; so we can look for them together.”