But, as Glam lay a-dying in
the second death, the moon fell on his awful eyes, and Grettir saw
the horror of them, and from that hour he could not endure to be in
the dark, and he never dared to go alone. This was his death, for
he had an evil companion who betrayed him to his enemies; but when
they set on Grettir, though he was tired and sick of a wound, many
died with him. No man died like Grettir the Strong, nor slew so
many in his death.
Besides those Sagas, there is the best of all, but the longest,
"Njala" (pronounced "Nyoula"), the story of Burnt Njal. That is too
long to sketch here, but it tells how, through the hard hearts and
jealousy of women, ruin came at last on the gentle Gunnar, and the
reckless Skarphedin of the axe, "The Ogress of War," and how Njal,
the wisest, the most peaceful, the most righteous of men, was burned
with all his house, and how that evil deed was avenged on the
Burners of Kari.
The site of Njal's house is yet to be seen, after these nine hundred
years, and the little glen where Kari hid when he leaped through the
smoke and the flame that made his sword-blade blue. Yes, the very
black sand that Bergthora and her maids threw on the fire lies there
yet, and remnants of the whey they cast on the flames, when water
failed them. They were still there beneath the earth when an
English traveller dug up some of the ground last year, and it is
said that an American gentleman found a gold ring in the house of
Njal.
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