is delivered by a great lady of the city, called Spes, who afterwards
falls in love with him; and the two meet often in spite of the
watchful jealousy of the lady's husband, who is at last so completely
conquered by a plot of hers (the sagaman here has taken an incident
with little or no change from the Romance of Tristram and Iseult),
that he is obliged to submit to a divorce and the loss of his wife's
dower, and thereafter the lovers go away together to Norway, and live
there happily till old age reminds them of their misdeeds, and they
then set off together for Rome and pass the rest of their lives in
penitence and apart from one another. And so the story ends, summing
up the worth of Grettir the Strong by reminding people of his huge
strength, his long endurance in outlawry, his gift for dealing
with ghosts and evil spirits, the famous vengeance taken for him in
Micklegarth; and, lastly, the fortunate life and good end of Thorstein
Dromund, his brother and avenger.

Such is the outline of this tale of a man far above his fellows in all
matters valued among his times and people, but also far above them
all in ill-luck, for that is the conception that the story-teller has
formed of the great outlaw. To us moderns the real interest in these
records of a past state of life lies principally in seeing events true
in the main treated vividly and dramatically by people who completely
understood the manners, life, and, above all, the turn of mind of the
actors in them. Amidst many drawbacks, perhaps, to the modern reader,
this interest is seldom or ever wanting in the historical sagas, and
least of all in our present story; the sagaman never relaxes his grasp
of Grettir's character, and he is the same man from beginning to end;
thrust this way and that by circumstances, but little altered by them;
unlucky in all things, yet made strong to bear all ill-luck; scornful
of the world, yet capable of enjoyment, and determined to make the