Um óðals iarðer. Nú scal þær iarðer telia er óðrlom scolo fylgia. Sú er ein er ave hefir ava leift. Sú er önnur er gollden er í mannsgiölld … þær scolo óðrlom fylgia, oc allar þær er í óðals skipti hava komet með bræðrom oc með frændom þeim [sic]. Allar aðrar aurum.
(G. 270.) Of odal lands. Now the lands shall be told which are odal. One is that left by grandfather to grandfather. Another is that paid as wergeld.… These shall be odal and all those which have come under odal division between brothers and their kinsmen. All other lands shall be counted aurar [money].
The odal-sharers must consent to a sale of odal land.
At the time of the laws owners of odal had, it appears, certain powers of selling their odal, but even then it was not an uncontrolled right of a man to do what he would with his own. His first act must be to ‘go to the “thing” in autumn and offer it to his odal-sharers’ (odalsnautr, one who has odal-right to land in common with others). (G. 276.)
If a man buys without its having been thus offered, then ‘the odal-sharers may break that bargain’ (G. 277). Even when the sale and purchase have been made by the public ceremony of skeyting, i.e. by taking earth from the four corners of the hearth and from under the ‘high seat,’ and where field and meadow meet, and with witnesses at the ‘thing’ (G. 292), the odal-sharers of the seller have the right to redeem it within a twelvemonth (G. 278).
The odal-sharers have rights to keep it in the family and to prevent its passing to females.
Take, again, the case of two brothers dividing odal, and observe how careful law and custom had been to prevent either of the odal-shares going out of the family. The odal rights between them were maintained for as many generations as must pass before the shares could be united again by a lawful marriage between a son of one family and a daughter of the other (G. 282). One is tempted to say that here again there may be something very much like the Cymric gwely and to suppose that marriage was forbidden within the gwely, e.g. between second cousins, and that the odal sharing continued so long as the gwely held together.
Nú skipta brœðr tveir óðrlom sín á milli, þá scal þingat hverva í þá kvísl óðol, sem loten ero, bæði at boðom oc at ábúð, bióða því at eins í aðra kvisl ef þá sœker þrot æða aldauða arfr verðe. En eigi skiliasc óðol með þeim at helldr fyrr en hvártveggia má eiga dottor annars.
If two brothers divide their óðals between them, the óðals shall pass into the hands of the branch which receives them by lot, in respect both of right of redemption and of occupation; they shall only be offered to the other branch if this one comes to utter poverty, or the inheritance is left without a legal heir. Yet the latter does not lose its right to the óðals until each of the two can marry the other’s daughter.
If the family of one of the brothers sinks into utter poverty or is left without a legal heir, the other family have the right of redemption and occupancy; and yet the poverty-stricken or heirless branch does not lose its rights to the odal altogether. There is still the chance that its rights may be restored when a son on each side can marry a daughter of the other side.