y threw ropes round his feet. Grettir kicked
two of them in the ears and they fell senseless. One came on after the
other; long and hard he struggled, but at last they succeeded in getting
him down and binding him. Then they began to ask themselves what they
were going to do with him. They asked Helgi of Laugabol to take him over
and look after him until Vermund returned from the Thing.

He said: "I have something better to do than to keep my men guarding
him. I have labour enough with my lands, and he shall not come in my
way."

Then they asked Thorkell of Gervidal to take him and said he had
sufficient means. He objected strongly and said he had no accommodation
for him, "I lie at home with my wife, far from other men. You shall not
bring your basket to me."

"Then you, Thoralf of Eyr," they said; "you take Grettir and look after
him well while the Thing lasts, or else hand him on to the next farm;
only be answerable for his not escaping. Give him over bound, just as
you receive him."

He said: "I am not going to take Grettir. I have neither means nor money
to keep him, nor was he captured on my property. So far as I can see
much more trouble than credit is to be got by taking him or having
anything to do with him. He shall not enter my house."

Each of the bondis was asked, but all refused. Some witty person wrote a
poem about these confabulations and called it "Grettir's Faring," adding
many jests of his own for the dilectification of men. After parleying
for a long time they all came to an agreement that they would not throw
away their luck, and set to work to raise a gallows there and then
in the forest upon which Grettir should hang. Their delight over this
proposal was uproarious.

Then they saw three people riding along the valley from below, one
of them in a dyed dress. They guessed that it must be Thorbjorg the
mistress of Vatnsfjord on her way to the dairy, and so it was. Thorbjorg
was a person of great magnificence, and tremendously wise. She was the
leading personage of the district and managed everything when Vermund
was away. She came up to where the crowd was gathered and was lifted
from her horse; the bondis saluted her respectfully. She said:

"What is your meeting about? Who is this thick-necked man sitting there
in bonds?"

Grettir told his name and saluted her.

"What has moved you, Grettir," she said, "to commit violence upon my
Thing-men?"

"I cannot overlook everything," he said. "I