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"There must be a little skin-dressing done first," answered Grettir. Then he took a good handful of birch rods from the wood, pulled Gisli's clothes up over his head, and laid the twigs against his back in none of the gentlest fashion.
So Grettir abode in Fairwoodfell for one winter, in such wise, that none set on him, though many lost their goods at his hands and could do nought therefor, for a good place for defence he had, and was ever good friend to those nighest to him. <i>Gisli's meeting with Grettir</i>. There was a man hight Gisli, the son of that Thorstein whom Snorri Godi had slain.
'Good will befall neither of us; for I will not give up the sword, and it shall never come into any man's hand but mine, if I have my will. "Then Kol lifted his ax, and Gisli drew Graysteel, and they smote at each other. Kol's blow fell on Gisli's head, so that it sank into the brain; and Graysteel fell on Kol's head, and his skull was shattered, and Graysteel broke asunder.
Grettir got tired of being hemmed in, so he made a lunge with his sword and killed one of Gisli's men, sprang from his stone and assailed them so vigorously that Gisli fell back all along the foot of the hill. Then his other man was killed. Grettir said: "One would scarcely see that you have achieved much in the world abroad, and you have shamefully forsaken your comrades."
Few of our men have grown gray-headed; in the sea and on the battlefield they have found their graves; and the women have had sorrow in marriage and death in child-bearing." "It was an evil deed," said David. "It was a great curse for it also; one thousand years it has followed Gisli's children." "Not so! I believe it not! Neither the dead nor the living can curse those whom God blesses."
"I have found him now," he answered; "but I know not how I shall part with him. Keep what you have taken and let me go free." Grettir said: "You will not understand what I am going to tell you, so I must give you something to remember it by." Then he pulled up Gisli's shirt over his head and let the rod play on both sides of his back.
He was righteously angry at Gisli's base ingratitude; he was sorry for his sin; but others had doubtless felt the same anger and sorrow, and it had been ineffectual.
So did they, and Grettir gave back before them to a stone which stands by the way and is called Grettir's-Heave, and thence defended himself; and Gisli egged on his fellows eagerly; but Grettir saw now that he was no such a hardy heart as he had made believe, for he was ever behind his fellows' backs; and withal he grew aweary of this fulling business, and swept round the short-sword, and smote one of Gisli's fellows to the death, and leaped down from the stone, and set on so fiercely, that Gisli shrank aback before him all along the hill-side: there Gisli's other fellow was slain, and then Grettir spake: "Little is it seen in thee that thou hast done well wide in the world, and in ill wise dost thou part from thy fellows."
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