Gripla - 20.12.2017, Side 117

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that the farmers and chieftains form an alliance against them to bring them
down.
The contagious nature of monstrosity visible in the events in Forsælu-
dalr has been discussed above. However, the monstrous disease with which
Glámr infects Grettir does not stop there, but also seems to affect Þorbjǫrn
ǫngull, who, just like Grettir, is outlawed and killed with the sword he
took from his former opponent.63 While it may be going too far to sug-
gest that Grettir’s brother Illugi – who voluntarily goes into exile with his
brother and is subsequently killed and buried alongside him because of
it – is similarly infected, he certainly is caught up in Grettir’s disruption.
the manner of Grettir’s death matches the monstrous potential he had in
life: after being killed, Grettir is both dismembered and beheaded with his
own sword.64 Richard Harris argued that this act of beheading someone
with their own weapon is reminiscent of the deaths of trolls and giants
elsewhere.65 Dismembering, too, is often used of potentially monstrous
figures like berserkir, and this shows how close Grettir has come in death to
the creatures he fought during his life, particularly in the eyes of Þorbjǫrn.
Illugi is not killed in this manner – instead, [l]eiddu þeir hann þá […] austr
á eyna, ok hjuggu hann þar [Then they led him to the east of the island and
killed him there],66 but both his and Grettir’s bodies are put in a cairn:
Þeir dysjuðu þá brœðr báða þar í eyjunni [They buried both the brothers in a
cairn on the island].67 This kind of burial is not only used for criminals, but
also for magic-users and berserkir,68 and frequently for those people who
later rise from their graves to haunt the living; Glámr himself is buried in
this way.69 While Illugi is a heroic character whose death is condemned as
shameful and unnecessary, this common – monstrous – burial suggests
that, through his connection with his older brother, he, too, becomes
linked to the ‘chain of malign supernatural activity’ that only ends with
63 Grettis saga, 273.
64 Grettis saga, 261–62.
65 richard Harris, “the Deaths of Grettir and Grendel: a new Parallel,” Scripta Islandica 24
(1974): 38–39 and 47.
66 Grettis saga, 263.
67 Ibid., 263.
68 Cf. e.g. the sorcerers in Gísla saga, 60, and also Laxdœla saga (ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson),
106–107, and the berserkir in Eyrbyggja saga, 74–75.
69 Grettis saga, 113: dysjuðu hann þar, sem þá var hann kominn [they buried him in a cairn in the
place to which he had then come].
“HE HaS LonG forfEItED aLL KInSHIP tIES”