Grettir undertakes a long voyage to the Skerry Stone. The Skerry Sone is a seasonal trading depot far to the north where northern barbarians bring furs, amber and curios to trade with southern merchants for manufactured goods. Grettir fits out a longship and buys a cargo cloth and metal goods including weapons and armour. His crew includes Silden, Eldamar, the ranger Zalgorin, a freebooter called Black Sigi, the magician Paradoxides and his old shipmates Yog and Kinness. The rest of the crew are Sequarl men including Salrod, the berserker Donsti and Grettir’s new skald Rune Injalf, who, it turns out is a specialist in Dwarven-style song and poetry.
They turn east out of the Otanga estuary, sail past Port Town and Aemilia and round the Guria Peninsular. At Cansey they take a detour and make their way inland, up the river to the Dwarven city of Katelgroth – to the delight of Rune-Injalf. There they do some personal trading for there is no better place in the North to buy enchanted weapons and armour – and other magical exotica. Trading done they head back downstream to the sea again. Near the estuary they encounter a pirate ship out of Uran the Vile. They take it, make it their prize and continue north. En route they encounter the Silver Surfer (a powerful elven sorceror who mostly talks to Eldamar); they endure two storms; and slay a sea serpent.
The trade-meet at the Skerry Stone throngs with traders, all with goods to buy and sell. Trading is guaranteed and presided over by a priesthood of Shamans. The anchorage is full of southern merchants from Chittagong, Port Town and Aemilia. They are selling manufactured goods at ridiculously favourable rates for furs, amber and other northern goods. Grettir empties his holds of weapons and armour and then fills them again with prime furs and hides.
Meanwhile Silden, the Dwarven Priest, starts a sideline in advising the northern merchants on the true value of the southern goods so that the northerners can drive harder bargains. The southern merchants are outraged. It soon becomes a reputational issue for Grettir as they demand he do something about this troublesome dwarf that he has brought with him. However, the Shamans have taken the dwarf into protective custody to use his knowledge more systematically.
Grettir, not wishing to incur the enmity of the southern traders – particularly those from Chittagong – but equally unwilling to harm his friend must find a solution. That night he sends his skald, Rune-Injalf, to sing a song in dwarvish near Silden’s tent that outlines to him Grettir’s cunning plan.
In the morning Grettir publicly challenges Silden to a holmgang. Silden at first accepts the challenge but then quails and offers to pay weregild instead. Grettir accepts and sets the weregild as Silden’s silence for as long as Grettir wills it. In silence the dwarf climbs aboard Grettir’s ship.
“You are a clever man, Grettir Strongarm,” says the head shaman, “Don’t ever come back.”
They cast off. It is some days before Grettir lifts his injunction and allows Silden to speak.
Ref: B-36
OE Date: March-July 679
Characters: Grettir, Paradoxides, Silden, Eldamar, Salrod, Zalgorin NPCs: Rune-Injalf, Kinness, Yog, Black Sigi, Donsti
Real World: When – 2nd Term, 1982 ; Where – St Andrews (Winram Place)