For reasons now forgotten, Grettir and Paradoxides decide to take a small boat – a fishing smack – along the coast between the Otanga estuary and Port Town. They have with them Givnic, Grettir’s huscarle Giziar, his armour bearer Eargh Skolson and a couple of Sequarl veterans as crewmen. En route they encounter a longship full of vikings out of Cansey, which bears down on them. They have little choice but to flee for the shore, beaching their small boat with little care on a rocky shore. The vikings give chase, but must stand a little further out for fear of the rocks, and wade through the surf to come at them. Many do not reach the shore – Grettir is a prodigious shot with a long bow and has a full quiver, most of his men are bow-armed too and Paradoxides casts lighting bolts. The vikings arrive in dribs and drabs. Individually they are no match for Grettir or Giziar. Seeing that even were he to win the encounter, he would have few crew left to man the oars at then end of it, the viking chief, who is called Black Bjorn, calls truce. Oaths are traded and he and Grettir become first wary allies and then friends. Black Bjorn is guested in Sequarl and becomes a regular visitor over a span of years.
Ref: B-58
OE Date: June – 681
Characters: Grettir, Paradoxides, Givnic. NPCs: Giziar, Eargh, Black Bjorn
Real World: When – 1st half of 1983 ; Where – St Andrews (The Pit)