ngs, becomes
Sturlunga in the same manner.]

As some may like to know what they are going to read about before
venturing on beginning the book, we will now give a short outline of
our Saga.

The first thirteen chapters (which sometimes are met with separately
in the Icelandic as the Saga of Onund Treefoot), we have considered as
an introduction to the story, and have accordingly distinguished them
from the main body of the book. They relate the doings of Grettir's
ancestors in Norway, in the lands West over the Sea and in Iceland,
and are interesting and in many points necessary for the understanding
of the subsequent story; one of these we note here for the reader's
convenience, viz. the consanguinity of Grettir and King Olaf the
Saint;[3] for it adds strongly to the significance of the King's
refusal to entertain Grettir at his court, or to go further into the
case of the murder he was falsely accused of.

[Footnote 3:

Onund Treefoot brother to Gudbiorg
| |
Thorgrim Greypate Gudbrand
| |
Asmund the Greyhaired Asta (mother of)
| |
Grettir the Strong. Olaf the Saint.]

The genealogies of this part of the work agree closely with those of
the Landnama-bok, and of the other most reliable Sagas.

After this comes the birth of Grettir, and anecdotes (one at least
sufficiently monstrous) of his unruly childhood; then our hero kills
his first man by misadventure, and must leave Iceland; wrecked on
an isle off Norway, he is taken in there by a lord of that land, and
there works the deed that makes him a famous man; the slaying of the
villainous bearserks, namely, who would else have made wreck of the
honour and goods of Grettir's host in his absence; this great deed,
we should say, is prefaced by Grettir's first dealings with the
supernatural, which characterise this Saga, and throw a strange light
on the more ordinary matters throughout. The slaying of the bearserks
is followed by a feud which Grettir has on his hands for the slaying
of a braggart who insulted him past bearing, and so great the feud
grows that Grettir at last finds himself at enmity with Earl Svein,
the ruler of Norway, and, delivered from death by his friends, yet
has to leave the land and betake himself to Iceland again. Coming back
there, and finding himself a man of great fame, and hungry, for more
still, he tries to measure h