THE SCENE: An assassination attempt is foiled by an incredibly stupid turn of events. This being Iceland, they wrote a poem about it.
THE TEXT: Then the people in Vik made a plan. There was a man named Thorfinn who was one of Flosi’s farmhands at Arnes. Flosi sent him to kill Thorgeir and he hid in the boat-shed. That morning, Thorgeir prepare to put out to sea and go fishing, taking two men with him, one man named Hamund and the other Brand. Thorgeir led the way. He had a leather flask full of drink on his back. It was very dark and as he was walking down from the boat-shed Thorfinn ran up to him and struck him between the shoulder blades with an axe, which sunk in with a squelch. Thorfinn let go of the axe, because he assumed there would be no point in dressing the wound, and he wanted to escape at once.
So Thorfinn ran off to Arnes and arrived there before it was completely daylight. He announced that Thorgeir had been killed and said he would need Flosi’s protection. The only action they could take would be to offer a settlement, he said, “and that will make our case look a little more favorable, considering how serious it is.”
Flosi said he would wait to hear what had happened first, “and I can see you’re pretty scared by your mighty deed.”
To return to Thorgeir. He had spun round when the blow struck him, so that the axe went into the leather flask without wounding him. Because it was dark they did not search for the attacker, but rode out along the fjords to Kaldback, where they told what had happened.
They made great fun of the incident and called him Thorgeir Bottle-back, and the nickname stuck with him. This verse was made about the attack:
In the old days, heroes would bathe
Shield-biters like shimmering fish
In a sea of blood flowing from wounds
Deep as sharp-pointed roofs.
Now the weakling who never won
Renown far and wide has smeared,
From sheer cowardice, both sides
Of his axe with curdled whey.
– The Saga of Grettir the Strong, 14th Century AD
