The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Grettir The Strong
by Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

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Title: The Story of Grettir The Strong

Author: Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

Release Date: June 26, 2004 [EBook #12747]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF GRETTIR THE STRONG ***

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THE STORY OF GRETTIR THE STRONG

TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC

BY
EIRIKR MAGNUSSON
AND
WILLIAM MORRIS

1900

A life scarce worth the living, a poor fame
Scarce worth the winning, in a wretched land,
Where fear and pain go upon either hand,
As toward the end men fare without an aim
Unto the dull grey dark from whence they came:
Let them alone, the unshadowed sheer rocks stand
Over the twilight graves of that poor band,
Who count so little in the great world's game!

Nay, with the dead I deal not; this man lives,
And that which carried him through good and ill,
Stern against fate while his voice echoed still
From rock to rock, now he lies silent, strives
With wasting time, and through its long lapse gives
Another friend to me, life's void to fill.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

PREFACE.

We do not feel able to take in hand the wide subject of the Sagas of
Iceland within the limits of a Preface; therefore we have only to say
that we put forward this volume as the translation of an old story
founded on facts, full of dramatic interest, and setting before
people's eyes pictures of the life and manners of an interesting race
of men near akin to ourselves.

Those to whom the subject is new, we must refer to the translations
already made of some other of these works,[1] and to the notes which
accompany them: a few notes at the end of this volume may be of use to
students of Saga literature.

[Footnote 1: Such as 'Burnt Njal,' Edinburgh, 1861, 8vo, and 'Gisli
the Outlaw,' Edinburgh, 1866, 4to, by Dasent; the 'Saga of Viga-Glum,'
London, 1866, 8vo, by Sir E. Head; the 'Heimskringla,' London, 184