bear thyself so briskly when we got thee off
that time when the men of Meals beat thee like a neat's head."

Then sang Grettir--

"Day by day full over long,
Arrow-dealer, grows thy tongue;
Such a man there is, that thou
Mayst be paid for all words now;
Many a man, who has been fain,
Wound-worm's tower with hands to gain,
With less deeds his death has bought,
Than thou, Tardy-one, hast wrought."

Said Thorbiorn, "About as feign do I deem myself as before, despite
thy squealing."

Grettir answered, "Heretofore my spaedom has not been long-lived, and
so shall things go still; now beware if thou wilt, hereafter will no
out-look be left."

Therewith Grettir hewed at Thorbiorn, but he swung up his hand, with
the mind to ward the stroke from him, but that stroke came on his arm
about the wrist, and withal the short-sword drave into his neck so
that the head was smitten off.

Then said the chapmen that he was a man of mighty strokes, and
that such should king's men be; and no scathe they deemed it though
Thorbiorn were slain, in that he had been both quarrelsome and
spiteful.

A little after they sailed into the sea, and came in late summer to
Norway, south at Hordaland, and then they heard that King Olaf was
north at Drontheim; then Grettir took ship in a trading keel to go
north therefrom, because he would fain see the king.

CHAP. XXXVIII.

<i>Of Thorir of Garth and his sons; and how Grettir fetched fire for
his shipmates</i>.

There was a man named Thorir, who lived at Garth, in Maindale, he was
the son of Skeggi, the son of Botulf. Skeggi had settled Well-wharf up
to Well-ness; he had to wife Helga, daughter of Thorkel, of Fishbrook;
Thorir, his son, was a great chief, and a seafaring man. He had two
sons, one called Thorgeir and one Skeggi, they were both hopeful men,
and fully grown in those days. Thorir had been in Norway that summer,
when King Olaf came east from England, and got into great friendship
with the king, and with Bishop Sigurd as well; and this is a token
thereof, that Thorir had had a large ship built in the wood, and
prayed Bishop Sigurd to hallow it, and so he did. Thereafter Thorir
fared out to Iceland and caused the ship to be broken up, when he grew
weary of sailing, but the beaks of the ship, he had set up over his
outer door, and they were there long afterwards, and were so full of
weather wisdom, that the one whistled before a south wind, and the
other be