thematic thread
Outlaws & Outsiders
Gísli is outlawed for a killing he half-conceals, and begins the longest outlawry in the sagas — years of moving by night, sheltered only by his wife's loyalty.
Outlawed
Named as Þorgrímr's killer, Gísli was made an outlaw — and Þorgrímr's brother Börkr the Stout, who had married the widowed Þórdís, took up the hunt against him.[1]
So began thirteen years of flight through the Westfjords — the second-longest outlawry in the sagas after Grettir's, and like Grettir's, a slow grinding-down of a man too able to be easily killed. Gísli moved between hiding-places and islands, sheltered by a dwindling few, hunted by Börkr and the trackers he hired. But where Grettir was cursed to be unbearably alone, Gísli had one thing Grettir never did: a wife who would not leave him.
The source text · 1
So Bork and his men rode on after that by the path over the sands till they get across the mouth of Sandwater; there they get off their horses and bait. Then Thorkel says he wishes to see his brother-in-law Aunund, and that he will ride on hard before them. But as soon as ever he was out of sight be rides straight for Hol, and says what had happened, and how Thordisa had given out that Gisli slew Thorgrim.— gisla saga
Gísli made an outlaw; Börkr hunts him (Dasent 1866).
The outlaw's death: cornered at last on a headland, Gísli fights to the end with a defiant verse on his lips. Hunted to death, but unbroken — the outlaw's only victory.
The outlaw's death
Twelve men rushed the crag at once. Gísli held them off with stones and blade, doing great deeds, until at last he was so wounded that his entrails came out — and he bound them up with his shirt and a cord, and fought on.[1]
With the last of his strength he leapt down among his enemies and clove the man who had wounded him to the waist, dying in the same stroke, falling on him dead. The saga gives him the outlaw's perfect end: cornered, hopelessly outnumbered, his guts bound in his shirt, still dealing death as he died. Of all the deaths in the sagas it is among the most admired — a man the law had cast out for thirteen years, dying with a courage that shames the fifteen who came to kill him.[2] Gísli Súrsson falls, and the broken oath of the saga's first pages is paid in full at last.
The source text · 2
Now they take counsel, and no one is willing to turn back for his life's sake. So they fall on him from two sides, and two men are foremost in following Eyjolf whose names are Thorir and Thord, kinsmen of Eyjolf. They were very great swordsmen, and their onslaught was both hard and hot; and now they gave him some wounds with spear-thrusts, but he still fought on with great stoutness and bravery; and they got such knocks from him, both with stones and strokes, that there was not one of them without a wound who came nigh him, for Gisli was not a man to miss his mark. Now Eyjolf and his kinsmen press on hard, for they felt that their fame and honour lay on it. Then they thrust at him with spears, so that his entrails fall out; but he swept up the entrails with his shirt and bound the rope round the wound.— gisla saga
Gísli fights on with his entrails bound (Dasent 1866).
That was Gisli's last song, and as soon as ever he had suing it he rushes down from the crag and smites Thord, Eyjolf's kinsman, on the head, and cleaves him down to the belt, but Gisli fell down on his body and breathed his last.— gisla saga
Gísli's death-leap from the crag — the outlaw's end (Dasent 1866).
Grettir's outlawry has an uncanny root: his fight with the draugr Glám, whose dying curse fixes on him a dread of the dark that will haunt all his hunted years.
Glámr walks
At Þórhallsstaðir a shepherd named Glámr — a big, surly, godless Swede — died on a haunted hillside one Yule and would not stay dead. He walked: rode the roofs by night, broke the doors, killed beasts and men and servants, until no one would stay on the farm and the whole valley lay under his terror. He was a draugr, the living dead, and the strongest dark thing in the sagas.[1]
Grettir, drawn by exactly the kind of challenge no one else would face, came to the farm and waited. He let Glámr break in and lay still under his cloak while the monster tore the hall apart — and then they grappled. It was the hardest wrestling of Grettir's life: through the wrecked hall, out into the night, neither able to throw the other, the strongest living man against the strongest dead one.[2]
The source text · 2
In the spring Thorhall got serving-men, and set up house at his farm; then the hauntings began to go off while the sun was at its height; and so things went on to midsummer. That summer a ship came out to Hunawater, wherein was a man named Thorgaut. He was an outlander of kin, big and stout, and two men's strength he had. He was unhired and single, and would fain do some work, for he was moneyless. Now Thorhall rode to the ship, and asked Thorgaut if he would work for him. Thorgaut said that might be, and moreover that he was not nice about work.— grettis saga
Glámr dies and walks as a draugr (Morris & Magnússon 1869).
Glam fared slowly when he came into the door and stretched himself high up under the roof, and turned looking along the hall, and laid his arms on the tie-beam, and glared inwards over the place. The farmer would not let himself be heard, for he deemed he had had enough in hearing himself what had gone on outside. Grettir lay quiet, and moved no whit; then Glam saw that some bundle lay on the seat, and therewith he stalked up the hall and griped at the wrapper wondrous hard; but Grettir set his foot against the beam, and moved in no wise; Glam pulled again much harder, but still the wrapper moved not at all; the third time he pulled with both hands so hard, that he drew Grettir upright from the seat; and now they tore the wrapper asunder between them.— grettis saga
The wrestling with Glámr through the hall.
Grettir holes up on the island of Drangey, the strongest man in Iceland reduced to a fugitive on a rock — the outlaw's world shrunk to one last refuge.
Drangey
At last Grettir found the one place that suited an outlaw cursed to need company: the island of Drangey in Skagafjörðr — a sheer rock rising from the sea, reachable only by ladder, rich with sheep and birds and impossible to storm. There he settled, and crucially he was not alone: his devoted young brother Illugi went into outlawry with him, and a thrall to keep the fire.[1]
For a while it was as safe as his life could be — the curse's grip eased because he had his brother beside him. But the local chieftains wanted the island and the bounty on his head, above all Þorbjörn Öngull. They could not take Drangey by force. So Öngull turned to the one weapon strength could not answer: sorcery.
The source text · 1
Now Illugi his brother was by that time about fifteen winters old, and the goodliest to look on of all men; and he overheard their talk together. Grettir was telling his mother what rede Gudmund the Rich had given him, and now that he should try, if he had a chance, to get out to Drangey, but he said withal, that he might not abide there, unless he might get some trusty man to be with him. Then said Illugi,— grettis saga
Grettir settles on Drangey with Illugi (Morris & Magnússon 1869).
And his death by sorcery — a cursed log, a witch's spell — because no man could take Grettir by strength. Even the greatest outlaw falls only to the uncanny.
Death by sorcery
Öngull's foster-mother, an old witch, cursed a tree-root and sent it floating to Drangey; against all sense Grettir's axe glanced off it and gashed his own leg, and the wound festered and would not heal. Sick and weakening — the saga's strongest man brought low not by any blow but by witchcraft — Grettir lay helpless as Öngull's men finally climbed the rock.[1]
Illugi stood over his dying brother and fought them off the doorway as long as a man could, and when he was at last taken he was offered his life if he would swear to let Grettir's death go unavenged. He refused, and they killed him too — one of the great loyalties in the sagas, a boy choosing death beside his brother over life without honour.[2] Öngull cut off Grettir's head; the curse of Glámr had run its full course, exactly as foretold.
The source text · 2
Now the wind blew landward up the firth, yet the carline's root went in the teeth of the wind, and belike it sailed swifter than might have been looked for of it.— grettis saga
The witch's cursed root; Grettir's festering wound (Morris & Magnússon 1869).
Now they lay them down that evening, but at midnight Grettir began to tumble about exceedingly. Illugi asked why he was so unquiet. Grettir said that his leg had taken to paining him, "And methinks it is like that some change of hue there be therein."— grettis saga
Grettir's last night; Illugi's stand.
The legal face of it: Hrafnkell outlawed and driven from his land — outlawry not as wilderness-flight but as a chieftain stripped of everything and forced to begin again.
Outlawed
With seventy Westfjords men at his back, Sámr stood at the Law Rock and pleaded the case cleanly, fearlessly, without a single misstep. When Hrafnkell tried to force his way through to break up the court — his old method, cow the small men, scatter the suit — the crowd was simply too thick. He could not get near. He could not even be heard to mount a defence. And so, at that very Thing, Hrafnkell Freysgoði was made a full outlaw, and rode home east in a black temper at an ending he had never once tasted before.[1]
But an outlawry was not finished until the sentence of confiscation was carried out at the man's own home, within a fortnight. Þorgeirr knew it. Hrafnkell is sitting at Aðalból as if nothing happened, he warned Sámr — guessing, rightly, that the man would simply resume his rule unless they came and broke it in person.[2]
The source text · 2
And now they sit quietly until the time when judgments were to be passed. Then Sámr called together his men and went to the Mount of Laws, where the court was set. Then Sámr came boldly forth to the court; calling witnesses forthwith, he pleaded his cause in a manner good in law against Hrafnkell the priest, without making mistakes and with a frank and fearless manner of pleading. Then came up the sons of Thjóstar with a large following of men, all men from the west country joining them, whereby it was seen how well befriended the sons of Thjóstar were. Sámr pleaded the cause unto judgment, until Hrafnkell was called upon to defend, or then he who should be there present who should come forward to keep up law defence for him, according as might be good and right in law. Sámr's pleading was received with good cheer, and the question was put whether no one would bring forward a lawful defence on behalf of Hrafnkell. People rushed to the booth of Hrafnkell and told him what was doing. He started quickly, calling together his men, and went to the court, thinking that there would be but a poor "defence of the coast," and thinking in his mind how he should make small men loth to set up cases against him ; and was minded to break up the court for Sámr and to hustle him out of the case. This, however, was not to be done now; there being already there such a crowd of people that he could get nowhere near; and so was himself hustled away with great violence, even so that he could not hear the speaking of those who pleaded against him, and therefore was deprived of means to bring forward a lawful defence on his own behalf. But Sámr pushed the suit to the full extent of law, until Hrafnkell, at this very "Þing," was made full outlaw. Hrafnkell went forthwith to his booth and had his horses brought up and rode away from the "Þing" mightily ill-contented at the end of these affairs, for such he had never before experienced. So he rode east, over Lyngdalsheiði and further on to Siða, and did not halt travelling until he came to Hrafnkelsdalr, and settled in his home at Aðalból. He behaved as if nothing had happened. But Sámr remained behind at the "Þing," going about and bearing himself right struttingly. Many people thought it well that the case should have come about in this way, and that Hrafnkell should have to come down once in a way, calling now to mind how many people he had dealt with unfairly before.— hrafnkels saga
Hrafnkell made full outlaw at the Þing.
Sámr waited until the "Þing" broke up, and men got ready to return home. He thanked the brothers well for their assistance, and Thorgeirr asked Sámr, laughingly, how he was pleased at the turn matters had taken? He signified his pleasure thereat; but Thorgeirr asked: "Deemest thou thyself now in any better case than before?" Sámr said: "Methinks that Hrafnkell has had a right great shame of this, such as shall be long remembered, and I deem it to be worth as much as a great lot of money." Thorgeirr said: "A full outlaw the man is not yet, as long as the act of distress has not been executed, which must be done at his own home, not later than a fortnight after 'Wapentake' " (but it is called Wapentake when all men ride away from the "Þing"). "But I guess," said Thorgeirr, "that Hrafnkell is come home, and means to sit at Aðalból, and I also hold likely that he will have taken to himself thy rule over men. But thou, I guess, art minded to ride home and to settle at thy house as best thou mayest, if such be possible. I guess, too, that thou deemest thou hast so brought about thy affairs as to declare him an outlaw, but I am minded to think that he will overawe people in the same manner as before, excepting that, as for thyself, thou wilt have to stoop even lower than ever." "That I never mind," said Sámr. "Thou art a brave man," said Thorgeirr, "and I think that my kinsman, Thorkell, is minded not to let it come to a poor end with thee, having made up his mind to accompany thee until a settlement of thy case with Hrafnkell be brought about, so that thou mayest sit at thy home in quiet. And thou, too, wilt think that it is most due to us now to give thee our support, since already we had the most to do in thy affairs. Now for this once we shall accompany thee to the Eastfirths; but art thou acquainted with any road thither which is not a highroad?" Sámr said he would go back the same way he had come from the east, and was now right glad at this offer.— hrafnkels saga
The confiscation must be executed at Aðalból.
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