he sees horrible things in the dark, and cannot bear to be alone, and runs all kinds of risks to avoid it; and so the years of his outlawry pass on. From time to time, driven by need, and rage at his unmerited ill-fortune, he takes to plundering those who cannot hold their own; at other times he lives alone, and supports himself by fishing, and is twice nearly brought to his end by hired assassins the while. Sometimes he dwells with the friendly spirits of the land, and chiefly with Hallmund, his friend, who saves his life in one of the desperate fights he is forced into. But little by little all fall off from him; his friends durst harbour him no more, or are slain. Hallmund comes to a tragic end; Grettir is driven from his lairs one after the other, and makes up his mind to try, as a last resource, to set himself down on the island of Drangey, which rises up sheer from the midst of Skagafirth like a castle; he goes to his father's house, and bids farewell to his mother, and sets off for Drangey in the company of his youngest brother, Illugi, who will not leave him in this pinch, and a losel called "Noise," a good joker (we are told), but a slothful, untrustworthy poltroon. The three get out to Drangey, and possess themselves of the live-stock on it, and for a while all goes well; the land-owners who held the island in shares, despairing of ridding themselves of the outlaw, give their shares or sell them to one Thorbiorn Angle, a man of good house, but violent, unpopular, and unscrupulous. This man, after trying the obvious ways of persuasion, cajolery, and assassination, for getting the island into his hands, at last, with the help of a certain hag, his foster-mother, has recourse to sorcery. By means of her spells (as the story goes) Grettir wounds himself in the leg in the third year of his sojourn at Drangey, and though the wound speedily closes, in a week or two gangrene supervenes, and Grettir, at last, lies nearly helpless, watched continually by his brother Illugi. The losel, "Noise," now that the brothers can no more stir abroad, will not take the trouble to pull up the ladders that lead from the top of the island down to the beach; and, amidst all this, helped by a magic storm the sorceress has raised, Thorbiorn Angle, with a band of men, surprises the island, unroofs the hut of the brothers, and gains ingress there, and after a short struggle (for Grettir is already a dying man) slays the great outlaw and captures Illugi in spite of a gallant defence; he, too, disdaining to make any terms with the murderers of his brother, is slain, and Angle goes away exulting, after he had mutilated the body of Grettir, with the head on which so great a price had been put, and the sword which the dead man had borne.

But now that the mighty man was dead, and people were relieved of their fear of him, the minds of men turned against him who had overcome him in a way, according to their notions, so base and unworthy, and Angle has no easy time of it; he fails to get the head-money, and is himself brought to trial for sorcery and practising heathen rites, and the 'nithings-deed' of slaying a man already dying, and is banished from the land.

Now comes the part so necessary to the Icelandic tale of a hero, the revenging of his death; Angle goes to Norway, and is thought highly of for his deed by people who did not know the whole tale; but Thorstein Dromund, an elder half-brother of Grettir, is a lord in that land, and Angle, knowing of this, feels uneasy in Norway, and at last goes away to Micklegarth (Constantinople), to take service with the Varangians: Thorstein hears of this and follows him, and both are together at last in Micklegarth, but neither knows the other: at last Angle betrays himself by showing Grettir's sword, at a 'weapon-show' of the Varangians, and Thorstein slays him then and there with the same weapon. Thorstein alone in a strange land, with none to speak for him, is obliged to submit to the laws of the country, and is thrown into a dungeon to perish of hunger and wretchedness there. From this fate he is delivered by a great lady of the city, called Spes, who afterwards falls in love with him; and the two meet often in spite of the watchful jealousy of the lady's husband, who is at last so completely conquered by a plot of hers (the sagaman here has taken an incident with little or no change from the Romance of Tristram and Iseult), that he is obliged to submit to a divorce and the loss of his wife's dower, and thereafter the lovers go away together to Norway, and live there happily till old age reminds them of their misdeeds, and they then set off together for Rome and pass the rest of their lives in penitence and apart from one another. And so the story ends, summing up the worth of Grettir the Strong by reminding people of his huge strength, his long endurance in outlawry, his gift for dealing with ghosts and evil spirits, the famous vengeance taken for him in Micklegarth; and, lastly, the fortunate life and good end of Thorstein Dromund, his brother and avenger.

Such is the outline of this tale of a man far above his fellows in all matters valued among his times and people, but also far above them all in ill-luck, for that is the conception that the story-teller has formed of the great outlaw. To us moderns the real interest in these records of a past state of life lies principally in seeing events true in the main treated vividly and dramatically by people who completely understood the manners, life, and, above all, the turn of mind of the actors in them. Amidst many drawbacks, perhaps, to the modern reader, this interest is seldom or ever wanting in the historical sagas, and least of all in our present story; the sagaman never relaxes his grasp of Grettir's character, and he is the same man from beginning to end; thrust this way and that by circumstances, but little altered by them; unlucky in all things, yet made strong to bear all ill-luck; scornful of the world, yet capable of enjoyment, and determined to make the most of it; not deceived by men's specious ways, but disdaining to cry out because he must needs bear with them; scorning men, yet helping them when called on, and desirous of fame: prudent in theory, and wise in foreseeing the inevitable sequence of events, but reckless beyond the recklessness even of that time and people, and finally capable of inspiring in others strong affection and devotion to him in spite of his rugged self-sufficing temper—all these traits which we find in our sagaman's Grettir seem always the most suited to the story of the deeds that surround him, and to our mind most skilfully and dramatically are they suggested to the reader.

As is fitting, the other characters are very much subordinate to the principal figure, but in their way they are no less life-like; the braggart—that inevitable foil to the hero in a saga—was never better represented than in the Gisli of our tale; the thrall Noise, with his carelessness, and thriftless, untrustworthy mirth, is the very pattern of a slave; Snorri the Godi, little though there is of him, fully sustains the prudent and crafty character which follows him in all the Sagas; Thorbiorn Oxmain is a good specimen of the overbearing and sour chief, as is Atli, on the other hand, of the kindly and high-minded, if prudent, rich man; and no one, in short, plays his part like a puppet, but acts as one expects him to act, always allowing the peculiar atmosphere of these tales; and to crown all, as the story comes to its end, the high-souled and poetically conceived Illugi throws a tenderness on the dreadful story of the end of the hero, contrasted as it is with that of the gloomy, superstitious Angle.

Something of a blot, from some points of view, the story of Spes and Thorstein Dromund (of which more anon) must be considered; yet whoever added it to the tale did so with some skill considering its incongruous and superfluous nature, for he takes care that Grettir shall not be forgotten amidst all the plots and success of the lovers; and, whether it be accidental or not, there is to our minds something touching in