Atli Ásmundarson

Atli Ásmundarson is Grettir's well-loved elder brother — the steady, peaceable man whose murder is one of the cruelties that darken the great outlaw's life. While Grettir is away, the gentle Atli keeps the family farm at Bjarg, liked by all and seeking no quarrels; but the enemies the troublesome Grettir has made reach his innocent brother instead. Atli is killed at his own door by a thrust through the body, and his famous dying words are a model of saga understatement — observing dryly, as the spear goes in, that 'broad spears are in fashion nowadays' before he falls. His killing is another debt of blood laid on the outlaw line, another wrong Grettir's kin must carry. Atli is the saga's image of the good brother who pays for the wild one's quarrels — the quiet, blameless man killed for being kin to trouble, meeting his death with the dry courage the sagas most admire.