CHAPTER XL HOW THE LOG CAME TO DRANGEY––––––––
In the meantime Grettir, Illugi, and the churl Glaum were on Drangey catching fish and fowl for winter supplies. The fish in Iceland are beaten hard with stones and then dried in the wind, that makes them like leather; but it preserves them for a very long time, and they form the staple of food, as the people have no corn, and consequently no bread. They put butter on these dry fish, and tear them with their teeth. What Grettir did with the fowl he caught was to pickle them with salt water from the sea, and when the frost and snow came on then he would take them out of pickle and freeze them. Now, the whole of the sheep had been eaten some time ago, except the old mottled ram, which Grettir could not find in his heart to kill; and, as may be
