" Howard's "good luck" is to be read in his face by the
wise, even when, to the common gaze, he seems a half-paralytic
dotard, dying of grief and age.
Fate and evil luck dog the heroes of the Sagas. They seldom "end
well," as people say,--unless, when a brave man lies down to die on
the bed he has strewn of the bodies of his foes, you call THAT
ending well. So died Grettir the Strong. Even from a boy he was
strong and passionate, short of temper, quick of stroke, but loyal,
brave, and always unlucky. His worst luck began after he slew Glam.
This Glam was a wicked heathen herdsman, who would not fast on
Christmas Eve. So on the hills his dead body was found, swollen as
great as an ox, and as blue as death.
What killed him they did not know. But he haunted the farmhouse,
riding the roof, kicking the sides with his heels, killing cattle
and destroying all things. Then Grettir came that way, and he slept
in the hall. At night the dead Glam came in, and Grettir arose, and
to it they went, struggling and dashing the furniture to bits. Glam
even dragged Grettir to the door, that he might slay him under the
sky, and for all his force Grettir yielded ground. Then on the very
threshold he suddenly gave way when Glam was pulling hardest, and
they fell, Glam undermost. Then Grettir drew the short sword,
"Kari's loom," that he had taken from a haunted grave, and stabbed
the dead thing that had lived again.
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