Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.06.2017, Qupperneq 64

The Saga of
Grettir the Strong

Words: Grayson Del Faro Illustration: Inga María Brynjarsdóttir

This is the saga of Grettir, the
grandson of the “bravest and
nimblest one-legged man to ever
live in Iceland.” Don’t you wish
your grandpa was that cool? Don’t
be too jealous though because,
honestly, things don’t real ly
work out all that well for Grettir
in the end. Maybe this is karma
because he’s as famous for be-
ing an obstinate prick as he was
for being strong. Prick is a bit
of an understatement, because
he was basically a sociopath.
Loosey goosey
So that one-legged guy has a son
named Ásmundur, who himself
has two sons. Atli, the older, is
the favourite because he’s a good,
old-fashioned, goody-two-shoes
farmboy. Even at only ten years
old, Grettir is a fucking asshole
and so nobody likes him except
h i s mot her. Á s-
mu ndu r t r ies to
get Grettir to help
around the farm,
f irst ask ing h im
to take care of the
geese. Grettir de-
cides this is a task
for pussies, so he
k i l ls a l l the gos-
lings and breaks the
wings of the geese.
W h e n a s k e d t o
scratch his father’s
back, he uses a wool
comb to scrape shit
out of him. When
asked to care for the horses, he
flays all the skin off the back of
his father’s favourite horse. He
is given no more tasks after that
because, you know, sociopath.
When he is fifteen, his father
sends him to Parliament with
some dudes. He and another guy
both lose their food bags and
look for them together. When the
other guy finds one and claims it
as his own, they get into a scuffle
that ends up with Grettir put-
ting the other guy’s axe into his
brain. Sociopathic tendencies
aside, the other guy did actu-
ally start it. Zero fucks are giv-
en to Grettir at the Parliament,
though, and he is sentenced to
three years of outlawry. His dad
shrugs it off like, “bye Felicia.”
What happens in
Norway…
Okay, so he fucks off to Norway.
He makes more enemies than
friends, naturally, but he also
shows off how strong he is. He
bails all the water out of the sink-
ing ship on the way to Norway,
which makes up for the fact that
he spent most of the trip laying
around mocking the other trav-
e l l e r s . T h e n h e
kills some berserk-
ers! A nd a bea r!
Wow! Strong! But
also! Stil l an ass!
Some g uy named
Björ n t a l k s sh it
about Grettir, so
he kills him. And
h is brother. A nd
his other brother.
Oops, I guess. All
these dudes were
mad chummy with
a Norwegian earl,
so nat u ra l ly t he
s e r i a l - k i l l e r - i n -
the-making Grettir is no lon-
ger so welcome in Norway. But
would you look at that? His Ice-
landic outlawry has convenient-
ly ended so he peaces right out.
Back in Iceland, some random
Swede with crazy eyes insists
upon eating on Christmas Eve,
which is apparently against Chris-
tianity or some shit. So naturally
this guy Glámur dies because Je-
sus and comes back as a ghoul,
killing people at the farm where
he works in back-breakingly,
bone-crushingly brutal ways. The
survivors flee and then he slaugh-
ters the animals too. Let’s pre-
tend he is a metaphor for Grettir’s
animal cruelty. Bad! Bad Grettir!
Grettir decides to try his hand
against the ghoul. In the final
throes of their battle, Glámur’s
eyes start rolling around in his
face and he curses Grettir to live
alone forever, never reaching his
full potential. In response, Gret-
tir cuts off Glámur’s head and
leaves it facedown in his own ass
crack. Literally. Whenever Gret-
tir goes out at night, he sees the
ghoul’s eyes rolling around in
front of him and this gives him
a crippling fear of the dark. Let’s
say it’s his conscience for being
mean to the geese that one time.
…Does not stay in
Norway
He takes quick trip to Norway,
where he accidentally burns some
Icelanders to death and this is
cause for his final outlawry upon
returning to Iceland. He then
spends the rest of this life moving
around Iceland, avoiding boun-
ty hunters, taking advantage of
farmers to survive, and getting
stabbed in the back every time he
tries to befriend the other outlaws.
He does, however, find a valley
protected by a troll where no one
can bother him. There is plentiful
sheep to eat and the troll’s daugh-
ters are hella horny for him. But
he gets bored and leaves! Weren’t
you just starting to feel bad for
him? The poor big guy, lonely, lit-
tle bit sociopathic, scared of the
dark, never able to settle down.
Then he gives up on the Valley
of Infinite Food and Sex and it’s
like, “Nah, brah. You’re on your
own now.” Eventually he ends up
getting gangrene in his leg and
then ambushed on some island
where he dies. It’s supposed to
be heroic but then you remember
what he did to that poor lil hors-
ey like, “Nah, brah. Hell nah.”
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Morals of the
story:
1. Be nice to
animals.
2. Be nice to
people.
3. Just be
fucking nice
to everything,
okay?
62 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2017
Then he kills some
berserkers! And a bear!
Wow! Strong! But also!
Still an ass!