BOOK I.
The character of Grettir.
sible result of his exploit, Grettir, having lost a mealbag, finds Skeggi in the same predicament, and joins him in a common search. Skeggi comes across Grettir's bag and tries to hide it. When Grettir complains, Skeggi throws his axe at him and is slain in requital. It can scarcely be pretended that we are reading the true story of "an interesting race of men near akin to ourselves," when instead of a fair field and no favour we find that six men do not hesitate to fall upon one.-^ Thorfin, walking away from his boat with a leather bottle full of drink on his back, is assaulted from behind by Thorgeir, who thinks that he has slain him when he has only cut the bottle. He is jeered at next day for his blunder; but the act is no more blamed for its treachery than is the same base deed when Odysseus boastingly relates it of himself Thorgeir Bottle-jack is slain soon afterwards in a bloody fight over the carcass of a whale, in which half the population of the village seems to be slaughtered. Thorbiorn Oxmain thinks it a goodly exploit to knock at a man's door and then to thrust him through with a spear when he comes to open it. The same honourable champion, wishing to slay Grettir, discourses thus to his comrades : —
" I will go against him in front, and take thou heed how matters go betwixt us, for I will trust myself against any man, if I have one alone to meet ; but do thou go behind him, and drive the axe into him with both hands atwixt his shoulders ; thou needest not fear that he will do thee hurt, as his back will be turned to thee." *
When at a later time Grettir had slain Thorir Redbeard, Thorir of Garth assails the solitary outlaw with eighty men. Grettir slays eighteen and wounds many more, and the rest take to flight.
This last incident brings us to the main question. It is, of course, a sheer impossibility : * and if, as such, it is to be regarded as lying beyond the pale of human history, we are at once driven to ask wherein lies the real value of a narrative in which such incidents form the staple of the story. The translators tell us that throughout the tale "the Sagaman never relaxes his grasp of Grettir's character, that he is the same man from beginning to end, thrust this way and that by circumstances, but little altered by them ; unlucky in all things, yet made strong to bear all ill-luck ; scornful of the world, yet
' Preface, pp. i. and 94.
- P. 141. 3 P. 169.
- In Scott's 0/1/ Morlality, ch. xi.,
old Major Bcllcndcn takes his niece to task for believing that the heroes of romance fought single-handed with whole baUalions, "One to three," he says, "is as great odds as ever fought and won ; and I never knew anybody who cared to take that excc]5t old Corporal Raddlebanes. ... I dare say you would think very little of Raddle- banes if he were alongside of Arta- mincs."
