The Saga of Grettir the Strong [A Story of the Eleventh Century] (Everyman's Library 699)

xxii, 265 pp. Translated from the Icelandic by George Ainslie Hight. Grettir's saga is considered one of the Sagas of Icelanders, which were written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and record stories of events that supposedly took place between the ninth and the eleventh centuries in Iceland. The manuscript of Grettir's saga was written down some time just before 1400 AD, making it a late addition to the tradition. The author is unknown but it is believed that his story may have been based on a previous account of Grettir's life written by Sturla Þorearson. Whoever the author was, the author shows an awareness of the Sagas of Icelanders tradition by making references to other sagas and borrowing themes from the larger cultural milieu of the Germanic peoples that appear independently in other texts like the Old English Beowulf. Chapters 1-13 primarily focus on how Grettir's viking great-grandfather Onundur Tree-foot escaped Norway to settle in Iceland after fighting in the Battle of Hafrsfjord against the first king of Norway Harald Fairhair. Chapters 14-85 primarily focus on the life, condemnation, and death of Grettir. Chapters 86-93 focus on Grettir's half-brother Thorstein Dromund's journey to the court of Constantinople to take revenge and, incidentally, find courtly love before spending the latter portion of his life in a monastic cell in Rome.