great favour with the king as well as with Bishop Sigurd.  In token of this it is related that Thorir asked the bishop to consecrate a large sea-going ship he had built in the forest, and the bishop did so.  Later he came out to Iceland and had his ship broken up because he was tired of seafaring.  He set up the figures from her head and stem over his doors, where they long remained foretelling the weather, one howling for a south, the other for a north wind.

When Thorir heard that Olaf had become sole ruler of Norway he thought he might expect favour from him, so he dispatched his sons to Norway to wait upon the king, hoping that they would be received into his service.  They reached the south coast late in the autumn and engaged a rowing vessel to take them up the coast to the North, intending to go to the king.  They reached a port to the south of Stad, where they put in for a few days.  They were well provided with food and drink, and did not go out much because of the bad weather.

Grettir also sailed to the North along the coast, and as the winter was just beginning he often fell in with dirty weather.  When they reached the neighbourhood of Stad the weather became worse, and at last one evening they were so exhausted with the snow and frost that they were compelled to put in and lie under a bank where they found shelter for their goods and belongings.  The men were very much distressed at not being able to procure any fire; their safety and their lives seemed almost to depend upon their getting some.  They lay there in a pitiful condition all the evening, and as night came on they saw a large fire on the other side of the channel which they were in.  When Grettir’s companions saw the fire they began talking and saying that he who could get some of it would be a happy man.  They hesitated for some time whether they should put out, but all agreed that it would be too dangerous.  Then they had a good deal of talk about whether there was any man living doughty enough to get the fire.  Grettir kept very quiet, but said that there probably had been men who would not have let themselves be baulked.  The men said that they were none the better for what had been if there were none now.

“But won’t you venture, Grettir?  The people of Iceland all talk so much about your prowess, and you know very well what we want.”

Grettir said:  “It does not seem to me such a great thing to get the fire, but I do not know whether you will reward it any better than he requires who does it.”

“Why,” they said, “should you take us to be men of so little honour that we shall not reward you well?”

“Well,” said Grettir, “if you really think it so necessary I will try it; but my heart tells me that no good will come to me therefrom.”

They said it would not be so, and told him that he should have their thanks.

Then Grettir threw off his clothes and got ready to go into the water.  He went in a cloak and breeches of coarse stuff.  He tucked up the cloak, tied a cord of bast round his waist, and took a barrel with him.  Then he jumped overboard, swam across the channel and reached the land on the other side.  There he saw a house standing and heard sounds of talking and merriment issuing from it.  So he went towards the house.