Þorbjörn Öngull

Thorbjörn Öngull is the chieftain who finally brings down Grettir the Strong — and only by sorcery, because no man could do it by force. He hunts the great outlaw to his last refuge on the sheer island of Drangey, but Grettir, even alone and ailing, cannot be taken by ordinary means. So Thorbjörn turns to his old foster-mother, a witch, who curses a log of driftwood and sends it to the island; when Grettir tries to cut it, the axe glances and gashes his own leg, and the wound — magic in it — festers and will not heal, leaving the strongest man in Iceland helpless at last. Only then can Thorbjörn's men take him. He gets little glory from it: hounded for using witchcraft, he flees all the way to Constantinople, where Grettir's avenging brother Thorstein hunts him down. Thorbjörn is the saga's image of the enemy who wins dishonourably — the man who beat the unbeatable hero only by sorcery, and was repaid for it across the whole width of the world.