cultivated land. When they reached
Fljotstunga they thought it was time to sleep, so they took the bits
from their horses and turned them loose with their saddles. They lay
there well on into the day, and when they woke began to look for their
horses. Every horse had gone off in a different direction and some had
been rolling. Grettir could not find his horse at all. The custom was
at that time that men should find their own provisions at the Thing, and
most of them carried their sacks over their saddles. When Grettir found
his horse its saddle was under its belly, and the sack of provisions
gone. He searched about but could not find it. Then he saw a man running
very fast and asked him who he was. He said his name was Skeggi and that
he was a man from Ass in Vatnsdal in the North.

"I am travelling with Thorkell," he said. "I have been careless and lost
my provision-bag."

"Alone in misfortune is worst. I also have lost my stock of provisions;
so we can look for them together."

Skeggi was well pleased with this proposal, and so they went about
seeking for a time. Suddenly, when Grettir least expected it, Skeggi
started running with all his might along the moor and picked up the
sack. Grettir saw him bend and asked what it was that he had picked up.

"My sack," he said.

"Who says so besides yourself?" Grettir asked. "Let me see it! Many a
thing is like another."

Skeggi said no one should take from him what was his own. Grettir seized
hold of the sack and they both pulled at it for a time, each trying to
get his own way.

"You Midfjord men have strange notions," said Skeggi, "if you think that
because a man is not so wealthy as you are, he is not to dare to hold to
his own before you."

Grettir said it had nothing to do with a man's degree, and that each
should have that which was his own.

Skeggi replied: "Audun is now too far away to strangle you as he did at
the ball-play."

"That is well," said Grettir; "but however that may have been you shall
not strangle me."

Skeggi then seized his axe and struck at Grettir, who on seeing it
seized the handle of the axe with his left hand and pulled it forward
with such force that Skeggi at once let go. The next moment it stood in
his brain and he fell dead to the earth. Grettir took the sack, threw it
across his saddle and rode back to his companions.

Thorkell rode on, knowing nothing of what had happened. Soon Skeggi was
missed in the company, and when Grett