is, Asmund had a talk with Grettir, that he
should watch his horses. Grettir said this was more to his mind than
the back-rubbing.

"Then shalt thou do as I bid thee," said Asmund. "I have a dun mare,
which I call Keingala; she is so wise as to shifts of weather, thaws,
and the like, that rough weather will never fail to follow, when she
will not go out on grazing. At such times thou shalt lock the horses
up under cover; but keep them to grazing on the mountain neck yonder,
when winter comes on. Now I shall deem it needful that thou turn this
work out of hand better than the two I have set thee to already."

Grettir answered, "This is a cold work and a manly, but I deem it ill
to trust in the mare, for I know none who has done it yet."

Now Grettir took to the horse-watching, and so the time went on till
past Yule-time; then came on much cold weather with snow, that made
grazing hard to come at. Now Grettir was ill clad, and as yet little
hardened, and he began to be starved by the cold; but Keingala grazed
away in the windiest place she could find, let the weather be as rough
as it would. Early as she might go to the pasture, never would she go
back to stable before nightfall. Now Grettir deemed that he must think
of some scurvy trick or other, that Keingala might be paid in full
for her way of grazing: so, one morning early, he comes to the
horse-stable, opens it, and finds Keingala standing all along before
the crib; for, whatever food was given to the horses with her, it was
her way to get it all to herself. Grettir got on her back, and had a
sharp knife in his hand, and drew it right across Keingala's shoulder,
and then all along both sides of the back. Thereat the mare, being
both fat and shy, gave a mad bound, and kicked so fiercely, that her
hooves clattered against the wall. Grettir fell off; but, getting
on his legs, strove to mount her again. Now their struggle is of the
sharpest, but the end of it is, that he flays off the whole of the
strip along the back to the loins. Thereafter he drove the horses out
on grazing; Keingala would bite but at her back, and when noon was
barely past, she started off, and ran back to the house. Grettir now
locks the stable and goes home. Asmund asked Grettir where the horses
were. He said that he had stabled them as he was wont. Asmund said
that rough weather was like to be at hand, as the horses would not
keep at their grazing in such good weather as now it was.

Grettir