One day when it was very stormy and very cold the men called out to Grettir to get up and work; they said their claws were quite frozen.  He answered: 

     “Twere well if every finger were froze
     on the hands of such a lubberly crew.”

They got no work out of him and liked him even worse than before, and said they would pay him out on his person for his squibs and his mutinous behaviour.

“You like better,” they said, “to pat the belly of Bard the mate’s wife than to bear a hand in the ship.  But we don’t mean to stand it.”

The weather grew steadily worse; they had to bale night and day, and they threatened Grettir.  Haflidi when he heard them went up to Grettir and said:  “I don’t think your relations with the crew are very good.  You are mutinous and make lampoons about them, and they threaten to pitch you overboard.  This is most improper.”

“Why cannot they mind their own business?” Grettir rejoined.  “But I should like one or two to remain behind with me before I go overboard.”

“That is impossible,” said Haflidi.  “We shall never get on upon those terms.  But I will make you a proposal about it.”

“What is that?”

“The thing which annoys them is that you make lampoons about them.  Now I suggest that you make a lampoon about me.  Then, perhaps, they will become better disposed towards you.”

“About you I will never utter anything but good,” said he.  “I am not going to compare you with the sailors.”

“But you might compose a verse which should at first appear foul, but on closer view prove to be fair.”

“That,” he answered, “I am quite equal to.”

Haflidi then went to the sailors and said:  “You have much toil; and it seems that you don’t get on with Grettir.”

“His lampoons,” they answered, “annoy us more than anything else.”

Then Haflidi, speaking loud, said:  “It will be the worse for him some day.”

Grettir, when he heard himself being denounced, spoke a verse: 

“Other the words that Haflidi spake when he dined on curds at Reydarfell.  But now two meals a day he takes in the steed of the bays mid foreland shores.”

The sailors were very angry and said he should not lampoon Haflidi for nothing.  Haflidi said:  “Grettir certainly deserves that you should take him down a little, but I am not going to risk my good name because of his ill-temper and caprice.  This is not the time to pay him out, when we are all in such danger.  When you get on shore you can remember it if you like.”

“Shall we not endure what you can endure?” they said.  “Why should a lampoon hurt us more than it does you?”

Haflidi said so it should be, and after that they cared less about Grettir’s lampoons.

The voyage was long and fatiguing.  The ship sprung a leak, and the men began to be worn out.  The mate’s young wife was in the habit of stitching Grettir’s sleeves for him, and the men used to banter him about it.  Haflidi went up to Grettir where he was lying and said: