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This seemed strange to Asmund, as the weather changed in nowise from what it had been theretofore. The third morning Asmund went to the horses, and, coming to Keingala, said, "I must needs deem these horses to be in sorry case, good as the winter has been, but thy sides will scarce lack flesh, my dun." "<i>Things boded will happen</i>," said Grettir, "<i>but so will things unboded</i>."
Keingala would not take a bite except off her back, and soon after noon she bolted off to the stables. Grettir locked the door and went home. Asmund asked him where the horses were; he said he had looked after them as usual. Asmund said there must be a storm close at hand if the horses would not stay out in such weather as there was then. Grettir said: "Many seem wise who are lacking in wit."
"I have a dun mare with a dark stripe down her back whom I call Keingala. She is very knowing about the weather and about rain coming. When she refuses to graze it never fails that a storm will follow. You are then to keep the horses under shelter in the stables, and when cold weather sets in keep them to the north of the ridge.
"He must have something worse than merely making good the damage." "Let neither speak of it to the other," said Grettir, and so it remained. Asmund had Keingala killed. Many more childish pranks did Grettir play which are not told in the saga. He now began to grow very big, but men did not clearly know what strength he had because he had never been tried in wrestling.
Now Grettir took to the horse-watching, and so the time went on till past Yule-time; then came on much cold weather with snow, that made grazing hard to come at. Now Grettir was ill clad, and as yet little hardened, and he began to be starved by the cold; but Keingala grazed away in the windiest place she could find, let the weather be as rough as it would.
Then he spoke a verse: "He has cheated me sorely, and Keingala shorn. 'Tis the pride of a woman that urges her tongue. Artful he holds my commands in derision. Consider my verses, oh wife of my heart." "I do not know," she said, "which seems to me the more perverse, for you to make him work, or for him always to get out of it in the same way." "Now there shall be an end to it," said Asmund.
He said that he had stabled them as he was wont. Asmund said that rough weather was like to be at hand, as the horses would not keep at their grazing in such good weather as now it was. Grettir said, "<i>Oft fail in wisdom folk of better trust</i>." Now the night goes by, but no rough weather came on. Grettir drove off the horses, but Keingala cannot bear the grazing.
Next, Grettir was sent to tend the horses, amongst which was a favourite mare called Keingala, who always preferred the coldest and windiest spots to graze in; the boy was ill-clad and half-starved with cold, so, by way of paying Keingala out for her uncomfortable choice of pasture, he drew a sharp knife right across her shoulder and along both sides of her back.
So things went on awhile, and Asmund had Keingala killed; and many other scurvy tricks did Grettir in his childhood whereof the story says nought. But he grew great of body, though his strength was not well known, for he was unskilled in wrestling; he would make ditties and rhymes, but was somewhat scurrilous therein. He had no will to lie anight in the fire-hall and was mostly of few words.
Now Grettir deemed that he must think of some scurvy trick or other, that Keingala might be paid in full for her way of grazing: so, one morning early, he comes to the horse-stable, opens it, and finds Keingala standing all along before the crib; for, whatever food was given to the horses with her, it was her way to get it all to herself.
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