rid; she was old and cunning in
witchcraft, which she had learnt in her youth; for though Christianity
had now been established in the island, yet there remained still many
traces of heathendom.

Angle and she put out a ten-oared boat to pick a quarrel with Grettir,
of which the upshot was that the outlaw threw a huge stone into the
boat, where the witch lay covered up with wrappings, and broke her leg.
Angle had to endure many taunts at the failure of all his attempts to
outplay Grettir.

One day, Thurid was limping along by the sea, when she found a large
log, part of the trunk of a tree. She cut a flat space on it, carved
magic characters, or runes, on the root, reddened them with her blood,
and sang witch-words over them; then she walked backwards round it, and
widdershins--which means in a direction against the sun--and thrust the
log out to sea under many strong spells, in such wise that it should
drive out to Drangey.

In the teeth of the wind it went, till it came to the island, where
Illugi and Grettir saw it, but knowing it boded them ill, they thrust
it out from shore; yet next morning was it there again, nearer the
ladders than before; but again they drove it out to sea.

The days wore on to summer, and a gale sprang up with wet; the brothers
being short of firewood, Noise was sent down to the shore to look for
drift, grumbling at being ordered out in bad weather, when, lo! the log
was there again, and he fetched it up.

Grettir was angry with Noise, and not noticing what the log was, hewed
at it with his axe, which glanced from the wood and cut into his leg,
right down to the bone.

Illugi bound it up, and at first it seemed as though the wound was
healed. But after a time his leg took to paining Grettir, and became
blue and swollen, so that he could not sleep, and Illugi watched by him
night and day.

At this time Thurid advised Angle to make another attempt on the
island; he therefore gathered a force of a dozen men together, and set
sail in very foul weather, but no sooner had they reached open sea than
the wind lulled, so they came to Drangey at dusk.

Noise had been told to guard the ladders, and had gone out as usual
with very ill grace; he thought to himself he would not draw them up,
so he lay down there and fell asleep, remaining all day long in slumber
till Angle came to the island.

Mounting the ladders, he and his men found Noise snoring at the top;
arousing him roughly, they learn