ye will sleep in peace as for the bearserks."

Grettir drank little that evening, and lay with his weapons about him
through the night. In the morning, when it began to dawn, people were
summoned together throughout the island, and a search was set on foot
for the bearserks who had escaped the night before; they were found
far on in the day under a rock, and were by then dead from cold and
wounds; then they were brought unto a tidewashed heap of stones and
buried thereunder.

After that folk went home, and the men of that island deemed
themselves brought unto fair peace.

Now when Grettir came back to the mistress, he sang this stave--

"By the sea's wash have we made
Graves, where twelve spear-groves are laid;
I alone such speedy end,
Unto all these folk did send.
O fair giver forth of gold,
Whereof can great words be told,
'Midst the deeds one man has wrought,
If this deed should come to nought?"

The good wife said, "Surely thou art like unto very few men who are
now living on the earth."

So she set him in the high seat, and all things she did well to him,
and now time wore on till Thorfinn's coming home was looked for.

CHAP. XX.

<i>How Thorfinn met Grettir at Haramsey again</i>.

After Yule Thorfinn made ready for coming home, and he let those folk
go with good gifts whom he had bidden to his feast. Now he fares with
his following till he comes hard by his boat-stands; they saw a ship
lying on the strand, and soon knew it for Thorfinn's bark, the big
one. Now Thorfinn had as yet had no news of the vikings, he bade his
men hasten landward, "For I fear," said he, "that friends have not
been at work here."

Thorfinn was the first to step ashore before his men, and forthwith he
went up to the boat-stand; he saw a keel standing there, and knew it
for the bearserks' ship. Then he said to his men, "My mind misgives
me much that here things have come to pass, even such as I would have
given the whole island, yea, every whit of what I have herein, that
they might never have happed."

They asked why he spake thus. Then he said, "Here have come the
vikings, whom I know to be the worst of all Norway, Thorir Paunch
and Ogmund the Evil; in good sooth they will hardly have kept house
happily for us, and in an Icelander I have but little trust."

Withal he spoke many things hereabout to his fellows.

Now Grettir was at home, and so brought it about, that folk were slow
to go down to t