MUND. 



proofs for it, for he called you sons of a concubine.' Havk 

 said they would get witnesses that their mother was bought 

 with mund. ' But it is true that we did not first present this 

 claim to our brother Brynjolf. There was also to be a division 

 between kinsmen, and from Bard we expected honourable 

 treatment in every respect, but our dealings with him were not 

 long. Now this inheritance has come into the hands of un- 

 related men, and we cannot be altogether silent with regard 

 to our loss. It may be that there yet is as before such differ- 

 ence in power that we may not get our rights from thee, if 

 thou wilt hear none of the witnesses, whom we can bring forth 

 that we are odal-born men.' Thorolf answered harshly : ' I 

 count you the less legitimate as I am told your mother was 

 taken away by force and brought home as a captive ' " (Egil's 

 Saga, c. 9). 



Mund was originally the name for all the conditions in regard 

 to the property of both, especially that of the wife. This 

 agreement was the most important thing at thefestar ^betrothal, 

 fastening). Children born without the payment of it were 

 not inheritance-born in a word, were considered illegitimate. 



If the wife was poor and entirely without property the 

 husband had to give a mund of twelve aurar, in order that the 

 marriage should be regarded as fully legal. 



" Next we must know how we shall buy women with mund, so 

 that the child is inheritance-born. The man shall give that 

 woman a poor man's mund, amounting to 12 aurar, and have 

 witnesses (at the ceremony). He shall have bridesmen, and 

 she bridesmaids, and he shall give her a gift in the morning 

 when they have been together one night, as large as the one 

 at the betrothal. Then the child born thereafter is inheritance- 

 lorn " (Gulath., 5). 



"All men are not inheritance-born though they are free- 

 born. The man whose mother is not bought with mund, with 

 a mark, or still more property, or not wedded, or not betrothed, 

 is not inheritance-born. A woman is bought with mund when 

 a mark consisting of aurar, of the value of 12 feet of vadnial,' 2 < ir 

 more property, is paid or stipulated by hand-shaking. A 

 wedding is lawfully made if the lawful man betroths the 

 woman, and six men at least are present " (Gragas, i. 75). 3 



1 The word festar implied that she 

 was fastened, or, in a moderu sense, be- 

 trothed to the man ; and this important 

 ceremony preliminary to marriage took 



place in the presence of six witnesses. 



2 Common woollen cloth. 



3 Cf. also Earlier Gulathiny;'* Law, 51 ; 

 Xjala, c. 2. 



