56 



THE ARVEL, OR INHERITANCE FEAST. 



" A father's father, and father's brother, and brother's son 

 each inherit a third. 



" The sixth inheritance is taken by a brother of the same 

 mother (half-brother), and by a brother's sons. 



" A lawfully born mother is the heir of her child, and 

 then a lawfully born father's sister. 



" A prisung l and a thrall-born son, and a hornung," 2 if 

 freedom is given to them, take the same inheritance, and each 

 of them inherits from the other. 



" A mother's father and daughter's son both take the same 

 inheritance, and each inherits from the other. 



"A mother's brother and sister's son both take the same 

 inheritance, and inherit from each other. 



" Men who are sons of sister and brother both take the same 

 inheritance, and inherit from each other. 



" Sons of two sisters take the same inheritance, and inherit 

 from each other. 



" It is decided and decreed in the laws of men that if a man 

 slays a man in order to inherit from him, he has forfeited 

 his inheritance, and it shall be given according to law as if the 

 man did not exist who slays another for the sake of inheritance " 

 (Frostath. viii. 1-14). 



By the so-called settleiding, or leading into the family, i.e. 

 adoption, a person could give the illegitimately born the right 

 of inheritance, or at least a right to a certain part of the 

 inheritance, together with the legal heirs, the consent of the 

 latter being always necessary. The ceremony appears from 

 different laws to have been the same all over the country, 

 and its primitive form seems to indicate great antiquity ; 

 a shoe was placed alongside the skapker, the large vat into 

 which the beer was poured in the banqueting hall, and from 

 which the smaller vats and horns were filled and carried 

 round among the guests. The ceremony which followed is 

 thus described : 



" It is a full adoption, when a father leads into his family 

 his son, and those men assent who are the next heirs of the 

 one who adopts his son. Ale from three measures of grain 

 shall be made, and a bull three winters old be killed, and the 

 skin be flayed off its right hind-leg above the hough, and 



1 Son of a free womar begotten 

 secretl}'. 



2 Son of a free woman who has had 

 no inuml iaiil. 



