The free tribesman is the man who belongs to a kindred who can protect him by oath and by sword. Until a stranger has kinsmen who can do this he is an odd or kinless man, protected only by his lord. If he be killed his galanas goes to his lord; he has no recognised kin to receive it. If, on the other hand, he is charged with slaying another, he has no kin to swear to his innocence, the oath of a non-tribesman not being held good as against a tribesman. If guilty, he has no kin bound to fight in the feud for him, or to help him to pay a galanas for his crime. So that even when at the fourth generation the descendant of the alltud becomes the founder of a gwely he has gained only half the status of a tribesman. It is not till the fourth generation of descendants in the gwely, i.e. the seventh generation from the original settler, that a complete kindred has grown up. It is not till then that the descendant of the original alltud is surrounded by a full group of relatives, born in his great-grandfather’s gwely, whose oaths can be taken and who can protect him by oath and sword or in payment of galanas. All this time the alltud family have been more or less dependent on the protection of the chieftain, and rights and obligations are apt to be correlative.
The object of this essay is to inquire how far, in the case of other tribes, evidence may be found of the working of somewhat similar tribal instincts, resulting in customary rules more or less like those of the Cymry, so that at last, turning attention to the Anglo-Saxon laws, we may be able all the more fully to recognise and appreciate in them the traits of tribal custom, which among other factors went to the making of Anglo-Saxon England.
In the meantime, for future reference, the following list of the galanas of various classes will be found convenient:—
| The chief of kindred | 180 | cows | In Gwent and Dimetia 540, and his family 180 |
| The uchelwr | 120 | ” | |
| Man with family without office | 80 | ” | |
| The innate boneddig unmarried | 60 | ” | |
| The alltud of the brenhin or chief | 60 | ” | |
| The alltud of uchelwrs | 30 | ” | |
| Bondman 1lb. of silver or | 4 | ” | |
| Bondman from beyond sea | 6 | ” |
CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE OF BEOWULF ON TRIBAL CUSTOM REGULATING FEUDS &c.
What were the laws of the blood feud?
The object of the short study, in this chapter, of Beowulf, is to learn what incidental information it may give of tribal usage regarding the blood feud, especially on points which, in the case of the substituted wergeld, present doubt and difficulty.[59]