Story
Grettir is only introduced to the story in chapter 14. Up until then it tells of his father and grandfather who lived not uneventful lives. His grandfather Önundur from whom he may have inherited his physical strength had been a viking, and at one point fought a battle against Kjarval, who was king around Dublin. He settled at the northern coast of Iceland and had many sons. Grettir's life is told from beginning to end. As a child, he is rebellious and bad-tempered. He is described as red haired, somewhat freckled, and broad around the eyes. He is also courageous; he takes on and defeats the draugr Glámr, an undead being that is, in a sense, a corporeal ghost, strong and formidable. But the draugr curses him, and this is seen by the author as the cause of his later misfortunes.
Grettir is sometimes able to be a proper hero, defeating various enemies. But he is blamed for setting fire to a hall, killing many men, and is condemned to outlawry. This means that anyone can kill him without legal penalty and that people are forbidden to help him in any way; many infamous attempts are made on his life.
Grettir eventually becomes the longest-surviving outlaw in Icelandic history. When he had spent nearly 20 years as an outlaw, his friends and family ask for his banishment to be lifted, arguing that a man could not spend more than 20 years as an outlaw according to the law (in fact, there was no such law in medieval Iceland). After a debate at the assembly, it is decided that the outlawry will be lifted when he has completed the 20 years but not before. His enemies make one last effort, using sorcery to cause him to wound himself and finally defeat him, atop the cliff-sided, lonely, fortress-like Drangey off the northern tip of Iceland where he was staying with his brother Illugi, and his slave Glaumur.
His half brother, Thorsteinn of Dromund, later avenges him in a semi-comic scene in Byzantium, where the Norse served as Varangians.
Read more about this topic: Grettis Saga
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“I read a part of the story of my excursion to Ktaadn to quite a large audience of men and boys, the other night, whom it interested. It contains many facts and some poetry.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I know not whether the remark is to our honour or otherwise, that lessons of wisdom have never such power over us, as when they are wrought into the heart, through the ground-work of a story which engages the passions: Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon?”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Personal beauty is then first charming and itself, when it dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an end; when it suggests gleams and visions, and not earthly satisfactions; when it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness; when he cannot feel his right to it, though he were Caesar; he cannot feel more right to it than to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)