“This jewel-strewer, O ground of gold,
  (His counsels I deem over bold),
  On both these hands that trouble sow,
  (Ah bitter pain) will burn me now;

  Therefore with wool-comb’s nails unshorn
  Somewhat ring-strewer’s back is torn: 
  The hook-clawed bird that wrought his wound,—­
  Lo, now I see it on the ground.”

Hereupon was his mother sore vexed, that he should have taken to a trick like this; she said he would never fail to be the most reckless of men.  All this nowise bettered matters between Asmund and Grettir.

Now, some time after this, Asmund had a talk with Grettir, that he should watch his horses.  Grettir said this was more to his mind than the back-rubbing.

“Then shalt thou do as I bid thee,” said Asmund.  “I have a dun mare, which I call Keingala; she is so wise as to shifts of weather, thaws, and the like, that rough weather will never fail to follow, when she will not go out on grazing.  At such times thou shalt lock the horses up under cover; but keep them to grazing on the mountain neck yonder, when winter comes on.  Now I shall deem it needful that thou turn this work out of hand better than the two I have set thee to already.”

Grettir answered, “This is a cold work and a manly, but I deem it ill to trust in the mare, for I know none who has done it yet.”

Now Grettir took to the horse-watching, and so the time went on till past Yule-time; then came on much cold weather with snow, that made grazing hard to come at.  Now Grettir was ill clad, and as yet little hardened, and he began to be starved by the cold; but Keingala grazed away in the windiest place she could find, let the weather be as rough as it would.  Early as she might go to the pasture, never would she go back to stable before nightfall.  Now Grettir deemed that he must think of some scurvy trick or other, that Keingala might be paid in full for her way of grazing:  so, one morning early, he comes to the horse-stable, opens it, and finds Keingala standing all along before the crib; for, whatever food was given to the horses with her, it was her way to get it all to herself.  Grettir got on her back, and had a sharp knife in his hand, and drew it right across Keingala’s shoulder, and then all along both sides of the back.  Thereat the mare, being both fat and shy, gave a mad bound, and kicked so fiercely, that her hooves clattered against the wall.  Grettir fell off; but, getting on his legs, strove to mount her again.  Now their struggle is of the sharpest, but the end of it is, that he flays off the whole of the strip along the back to the loins.  Thereafter he drove the horses out on grazing; Keingala would bite but at her back, and when noon was barely past, she started off, and ran back to the house.  Grettir now locks the stable and goes home.  Asmund asked Grettir where the horses were.  He said that he had stabled them as he was wont.  Asmund said that rough weather was like to be at hand, as the horses would not keep at their grazing in such good weather as now it was.