ughty boy. But when, being promoted to mind the
horses, and having a grudge against a certain "wise" mare named
Keingala, because she stays out at graze longer than suits his
laziness, he flays the unhappy beast alive in a broad strip from
shoulder to tail, the thing goes beyond a joke. Also he is
represented, throughout the saga, as invariably capping his pranks or
crimes with one of the jeering enigmatic epigrams in which one finds
considerable excuse for the Icelandic proneness to murder. However, in
his boyhood, he does not go beyond cruelty to animals and fighting
with his equals; and his first homicide, on his way with a friend of
his father's to the Thing-Parliament, is in self-defence. Still,
having no witnesses, he is, though powerfully backed (an all-important
matter), fined and outlawed for three years. There is little love
lost between him and his father, and he is badly fitted out for the
grand tour, which usually occupies a young Icelandic gentleman's first
outlawry; but his mother gives him a famous sword. On the voyage he
does nothing but flirt with the mate's wife: and only after strong
provocation and in the worst weather consents to bale, which he does
against eight men.

They are, however, wrecked off the island of Haramsey, and Grettir,
lodging with the chief Thorfinn, at first disgusts folk here as
elsewhere with his sulky, lazy ways. He acquires consideration,
however, by breaking open the barrow of Thorfinn's father, and not
only bringing out treasures (which go to Thorfinn), but fighting with
and overcoming the "barrow-wight" (ghost) itself, the first of the
many supernatural incidents in the story. The most precious part of
the booty is a peculiar "short-sword." Also when Thorfinn's wife and
house are left, weakly guarded, to the mercy of a crew of unusually
ruffianly bersarks, Grettir by a mixture of craft and sheer valour
succeeds in overcoming and slaying the twelve bersarks single-handed.
Thorfinn on his return presents him with the short-sword and becomes
his fast friend. He has plenty of opportunity: for Grettir, as usual,
neither entirely by his own fault nor entirely without it, owing to
his sulky temper and sour tongue, successively slays three brothers,
being in the last instance saved only with the greatest difficulty by
Thorfinn, his own half-brother Thorstein Dromond, and others, from the
wrath of Swein, Jarl of the district. So that by the time when he can
return to Iceland, he h