“Arise from thy den! deep furrows we plough!  Remember the word thou didst speak to the fair.  Thy garment she sewed; but now she commands that thou join in the toil while the land is afar.”

Grettir got up at once and said: 

“I will rise, though the ship be heavily rolling.  The woman is vexed that I sleep in my den.  She will surely be wrath if here I abide while others are toiling at work that is mine.”

Then he hurried aft where they were baling and asked what they wanted him to do.  They said he would do little good.  He replied:  “A man’s help is something.”  Haflidi told them not to refuse his help.  “Maybe,” he said, “he is thinking of loosening his hands if he offers his services.”

In those days in sea-going ships there were no scuppers for baling; they only had what is called bucket or pot-baling, a very troublesome and fatiguing process.  There were two buckets, one of which went down while the other came up.  The men told Grettir to take the buckets down, and said they would try what he could do.  He said the less tried the better, and went below and filled his bucket.  There were two men above to empty the buckets as he handed them.  Before long they both gave in from fatigue.  Then four others took their places, but the same thing happened.  Some say that before they were done eight men were engaged in emptying the buckets for him.  At last the ship was baled dry.  After this, the seamen altered their behaviour towards Grettir, for they realised the strength which was in him.  From that time on he was ever the forwardest to help wherever he was required.

They now held an easterly course out to sea.  It was very dark.  One night when they least expected it, they struck a rock and the lower part of the ship began to fill.  The boats were got out and the women put into them with all the loose property.  There was an island a little way off, whither they carried as much of their property as they could get off in the night.  When the day broke, they began to ask where they were.  Some of them who had been about the country before recognised the coast of Sunnmore in Norway.  There was an island lying a little off the mainland called Haramarsey, with a large settlement and a farm belonging to the Landman on it.

CHAPTER XVIII

ADVENTURE IN THE HOWE OF KAR THE OLD

The name of the Landman who lived in the island was Thorfinn.  He was a son of Kar the Old, who had lived there for a long time.  Thorfinn was a man of great influence.

When the day broke, the people on the island saw that there were some sailors there in distress and reported it to Thorfinn, who at once set about to launch his large sixteen-oared boat.  He put out as quickly as possible with some thirty men to save the cargo of the trader, which then sank and was lost, along with much property.  Thorfinn brought all the men off her to his house, where they stayed for a week drying their goods.  Then they went away to the South, and are heard of no more in this story.