must be somewhere."

"You are indeed unfortunate," she said, "that a pack of churls like
these should have captured you and that none of them should have paid
for it. What are you men going to do with him?"

The bondis said that they were going to hoist him on to a gallows for
his misdeeds.

She said: "It may be that Grettir has deserved it, but it will bring
trouble upon you men of Isafjord if you take the life of a man so
renowned and so highly connected as Grettir, ill-starred though he be.
Now what will you do for your life, Grettir, if I give it to you?"

"What do you wish me to do?"

"You shall swear never to commit any violence here in Isafjord; nor
shall you take revenge upon those who have had a hand in capturing you."

Grettir said it should be as she desired, and he was released. He said
it was the greatest effort of self-restraint that he ever made that he
did not thrash the men who were there triumphing over him. Thorbjorg
told him to come home with her and gave him a horse to ride on. So he
went to Vatnsfjord and stayed there well cared for by the mistress until
Vermund returned. She gained great renown from this deed through the
district. Vermund was very much put out when he got home and asked why
Grettir was there. Thorbjorg told him everything which had happened with
the Isafjord men.

"To what does he owe it that you gave him his life?" he asked.

"Many reasons there were," she said. "The first is that you might be the
more respected as a chief for having a wife who would dare to do such a
thing. Next, his kinswoman Hrefna will surely say that I could not let
him be slain; and thirdly, because he is in many respects a man of the
highest worth."

"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