Grettir at first cares little for this; but the last part of the curse comes on almost at once and makes him afraid to be alone after dark, while the second is not long delayed. On the eve of setting out once more for Norway, he quarrels with and slays a braggart named Thorbiorn; during the voyage itself he is the unintentional cause of a whole household of men being burnt to death; and lastly, by his own quarrelsome temper, and some "metaphysical aid," he misses the chance of clearing himself by "bearing iron" (ordeal) before King Olaf at Drontheim. Olaf, his own kinsman, tells him with all frankness that he, Grettir, is much too "unlucky" for himself to countenance; and that though he shall have no harm in Norway, he must pack to Iceland as soon as the sea is open. He accordingly stays during the winter, in a peace only broken by the slaying of another bersark bully, and partly passed with his brother Thorstein Dromond. Meanwhile Asmund has died, his eldest son Atli has succeeded him, and has been waylaid by men suborned by Thorbiorn Oxmain, kinsman of the Thorbiorn whom Grettir slew before leaving Iceland the second time. Atli escapes and slays his foes. Then Thorbiorn Oxmain himself visits Biarg and slays the unarmed Atli, who is not avenged because it was Grettir's business to look after the matter when he came home. But Glam's curse so works that, though plaintiff in this case, he is outlawed in his absence for the burning of the house above referred to, in which he was quite guiltless; and when he lands in Iceland it is to find himself deprived of all legal rights, and in such case that no friend can harbour him except under penalty. Grettir, as we might expect, is not much daunted by this complication of evils, but he lies hid for a time at his mother's house and elsewhere, not so much to escape his own dangers as to avenge Atli on Thorbiorn Oxmain at the right moment. At last he finds it; and Thorbiorn, as well as his sixteen-year-old son Arnor, who rather disloyally helps him, is slain by Grettir single-handed. His plight at first is not much worsened by this; for though the simple plan of setting off Thorbiorn against Atli is not adopted, Grettir's case is backed directly by his kinsmen and indirectly by the two craftiest men in Iceland, Snorri the Godi and Skapti the Lawman, and the latter points out that as Grettir had been outlawed _before_ it was decreed that the onus of avenging Atli lay on him, a fatal flaw had been made in the latter proceeding, and no notice could be taken of the death of Thorbiorn at all, though his kin must pay for Atli. This fine would have been set off against Grettir's outlawry, and he would have become a freeman, had not Thorir of Garth, the father of the men he had accidentally killed in the burning house, refused; and so the well-meant efforts of Grettir's kin and friends fall through.