Medieval/Renaissance Classics: Grettir

Latest of the Icelanders’ sagas, written c. 1320. It tells of the brave and wellborn Grettir, who at 14 kills a man and is outlawed.

Norse immigrants from western Norway discovered and settled Iceland in the late ninth century. Servants and slaves accompanied these families; many of the indentured were Celts from Scotland and Ireland. Much of the history of Norse settlement in Iceland is derived from two Icelandic sagas. The Book of Icelanders, written by Ari Thorhilsson the Wise in the 10th century, tells of Iceland's history for the first 250 years after its settlement.

The sword of Grettir Asmundarson, the outlaw hero of the Icelandic tale Grettis saga (dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), Jokulsnaut was used to defeat a draugr (“after-goer”—a type of vampiric revenant).

Grettis saga, (c. 1320), latest and one of the finest of Icelandic family sagas. Its distinction rests on the complex, problematic character of its outlaw hero, Grettir, and on its skillful incorporation into the narrative of numerous motifs from folklore. Its theme is summed up in the gnomic style of the sagas: “Good gifts and good luck are often worlds apart.”...

Read the Saga of Grettir online through Project Gutenberg.