And they may be translated thus:—
9. And if a ceorlish man thrive so that he have v hides of land to the king’s utware and any one slay him, let him be paid for with 2000 thrymsas.[240]
9. If a ceorl be enriched to that degree that he have 5 hides of land to the king’s utware and any one slay him, let him be paid for with 2000 thrymsas.
10. And though he thrive so that he have a helm and coat of mail, and a sword ornamented with gold, if he have not that land he is nevertheless a ceorl.
10. And if he acquire so that he have a coat of mail and a helmet and an overgilded sword, if he have not that land he is [? not] sithcund.
11. And if his son and his son’s son so thrive that they have so much land, afterwards the offspring shall be of gesithcund race at 2000 (thrymsas).
11. And if his son and the son’s son acquire that they have so much land, let their successors be of the sithcund kin and let them be paid for with 2000 thrymsas.
12. And if they have not that nor to that can thrive, let them be paid for as ceorlish.
These passages are very important, as the most direct evidence we possess of the way in which under early Anglo-Saxon custom families became gesithcund by the gradual growth of a kindred whose kinsmen, like the odal-men of the Norse laws, could reckon four generations in succession of sufficient landholding.