CHAPTER XLII HOW ASDIS RECEIVED THE NEWS––––––––
Had the old hag, Thorbiorn's foster-mother, any hand in the death of Grettir? Certainly none. It was true that Grettir was wounded in the way described, by his own axe, but the condition of the wound was due to the scorbutic condition of his blood, through lack of green food. This the Icelanders did not understand; they could not comprehend how a wound could seem to be healing well and then break out and mortify afterwards, and they supposed that this was due to witchcraft. Then, again, Grettir's kin could not take the case of Grettir's murder into court, because Thorbiorn had acted within the law when killing him; but by charging him with the practice of witchcraft they made him amenable to the law. So, partly, no doubt, in good faith, the
