Asmund the Greyhaired Asta (mother of)
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Grettir the Strong. Olaf the Saint.]

The genealogies of this part of the work agree closely with those of
the Landnáma-bók, and of the other most reliable Sagas.

After this comes the birth of Grettir, and anecdotes (one at least
sufficiently monstrous) of his unruly childhood; then our hero kills
his first man by misadventure, and must leave Iceland; wrecked on
an isle off Norway, he is taken in there by a lord of that land, and
there works the deed that makes him a famous man; the slaying of the
villainous bearserks, namely, who would else have made wreck of the
honour and goods of Grettir's host in his absence; this great deed,
we should say, is prefaced by Grettir's first dealings with the
supernatural, which characterise this Saga, and throw a strange light
on the more ordinary matters throughout. The slaying of the bearserks
is followed by a feud which Grettir has on his hands for the slaying
of a braggart who insulted him past bearing, and so great the feud
grows that Grettir at last finds himself at enmity with Earl Svein,
the ruler of Norway, and, delivered from death by his friends, yet
has to leave the land and betake himself to Iceland again. Coming back
there, and finding himself a man of great fame, and hungry, for more
still, he tries to measure himself against the greatest men in the
land, but nothing comes of these trials, for he is being reserved for
a greater deed than the dealing with mere men; his enemy is Glam
the thrall; the revenant of a strange, unearthly man who was himself
killed by an evil spirit; Grettir contends with, and slays, this
monster, whose dying curse on him is the turning-point of the story.