“You are a wise woman,” he said, “in most things.  I thank you for what you have done.”

Then he said to Grettir:  “You have sold yourself very cheap, such a man of prowess as you are, to let yourself be taken by churls.  This is what always happens to those who cannot control themselves.”

Grettir then spoke a verse: 

     “Full was my cup in Isafjord
     when the old swine held me at ransom.”

“What were they going to do with you when they took you?” Vermund asked.

     “To Sigar’s lot my neck was destined
     when noble Thorbjorg came upon them.”

“Would they have hanged you then if they had been left to themselves?”

     “My neck would soon have been in the noose,
     had she not wisely saved the bard.”

“Did she invite you to her home?”

     “She bade me home with her to fare. 
     A steed she gave me, life and peace.”

“Great will your life be and troublous,” said Vermund; “but now you have learnt to beware of your foes.  I cannot keep you here, for it would rouse the enmity of many powerful men against me.  Your best way is to seek your kinsmen; there are not many who will be willing to take you in if they can do anything else; nor are you one who will easily follow the will of another man.”

Grettir remained for a time in Vatnsfjord and went thence to the Western fjords and tried several of the leading men there, but something always happened to prevent their taking him in.

CHAPTER LIII

GRETTIR WINTERS IN LJARSKOGAR WITH THORSTEINN KUGGASON

During the autumn Grettir returned to the South and did not stop till he came to his kinsman Thorsteinn Kuggason in Ljarskogar, who welcomed him.  He accepted Thorsteinn’s invitation to stay the winter with him.  Thorsteinn was a man who worked very hard; he was a smith, and kept a number of men working for him.  Grettir was not one for hard work, so that their dispositions did not agree very well.  Thorsteinn had had a church built on his lands, with a bridge from his house, made with much ingenuity.  Outside the bridge, on the beam which supported it, rings were fastened and bells, which could be heard from Skarfsstadir half a sea-mile distant when any one walked over the bridge.  The building of the bridge had cost Thorsteinn, who was a great worker in iron, much labour.  Grettir was a first-rate hand at forging the iron, but was not often inclined to work at it.  He was very quiet during the winter so that there is not much to relate.

The men of Hrutafjord heard that Grettir was with Thorsteinn, and gathered their forces in the spring.  Thorsteinn then told Grettir that he must find some other hiding-place for himself, since he would not work.  Men who did nothing did not suit him.

“Where do you mean me to go to?” asked Grettir.