Episode 19

"But I should like one or two to remain behind with me before Igo overboard.""That is impossible," said Haflidi. "We shall never get on upon those terms. But I will make you a proposal about it.""What is that?""The thing which annoys them is that you make lampoons about them. Now I suggest that you make a lampoon about me. Then, perhaps, they will become better disposed towards you.""About you I will never utter anything but good," said he. "I am not going to compare you with the sailors.""But you might compose a verse which should at first appear foul, but on closer view prove to be fair.""That," he answered, "I am quite equal to."Haflidi then went to the sailors and said: "You have much toil;and it seems that you don't get on with Grettir.""His lampoons," they answered, "annoy us more than anything else."Then Haflidi, speaking loud, said: "It will be the worse for him some day."Grettir, when he heard himself being denounced, spoke a verse:

"Other the words that Haflid spake when he dined on curds at Reydarfell.

But now two meals a day he takes in the steed of the bays mid foreland shores."The sailors were very angry and said he should not lampoon Haflidi for nothing. Haflidi said: "Grettir certainly deserves that you should take him down a little, but I am not going to risk my good name because of his ill-temper and caprice. This is not the time to pay him out, when we are all in such danger.

When you get on shore you can remember it if you like.""Shall we not endure what you can endure?" they said. "Why should a lampoon hurt us more than it does you? "Haflidi said so it should be, and after that they cared less about Grettir's lampoons.

The voyage was long and fatiguing. The ship sprung a leak, and the men began to be worn out. The mate's young wife was in the habit of stitching Grettir's sleeves for him, and the men used to banter him about it. Haflidi went up to Grettir where he was lying and said:

"Arise from thy den! deep furrows we plough!

Remember the word thou didst speak to the fair.

Thy garment she sewed; but now she commands that thou join in the toil while the land is afar."Grettir got up at once and said:

"I will rise, though the ship be heavily rolling.

The woman is vexed that I sleep in my den.

She will surely be wrath if here I abide while others are toiling at work that is mine."Then he hurried aft where they were baling and asked what they wanted him to do. They said he would do little good. He replied: "A man's help is something." Haflidi told them not to refuse his help. "Maybe," he said, "he is thinking of loosening his hands if he offers his services."In those days in sea-going ships there were no scuppers for baling; they only had what is called bucket or pot-baling, a very troublesome and fatiguing process. There were two buckets, one of which went down while the other came up. The men told Grettir to take the buckets down, and said they would try what he could do. He said the less tried the better, and went below and filled his bucket. There were two men above to empty the buckets as he handed them. Before long they both gave in from fatigue. Then four others took their places, but the same thing happened. Some say that before they were done eight men were engaged in emptying the buckets for him. At last the ship was baled dry. After this, the seamen altered their behaviour towards Grettir, for they realised the strength which was in him. From that time on he was ever the forwardest to help wherever he was required.

They now held an easterly course out to sea. It was very dark.

One night when they least expected it, they struck a rock and the lower part of the ship began to fill. The boats were got out and the women put into them with all the loose property. There was an island a little way off, whither they carried as much of their property as they could get off in the night. When the day broke, they began to ask where they were. Some of them who had been about the country before recognised the coast of Sunnmore in Norway. There was an island lying a little off the mainland called Haramarsey, with a large settlement and a farm belonging to the Landman on it.