The duties of the mǽgsceaft or kinship are developed with considerable detail in the law of Ælfred: the most general regulation is that which acknowledges the right of a man to have the aid of his kindred in all those excepted cases where the custom and the law still permitted the waging of fǽhðe or private war: “After the same fashion, may a man fight on behalf of his born kinsman, if any wrongfully attack him; except indeed against his lord: that we permit not[482].” Other clauses provide that where a wrongdoer is taken into custody, and agrees peaceably to abide the decision of the law, his relatives shall have due notice[483]: “If he pledge himself to a lawful act, and belie himself therein, let him humbly surrender his arms and his goods to his friends, to hold for him, and let him remain for forty days in prison in a king’s tún; let him there suffer as the bishop may direct him; and let his kinsmen feed him, if he have himself no food; but if he have no kinsmen, or no food, let the king’s reeve feed him.” Again if a man is accidentally slain while hewing wood with others, his kinsmen are to have the tree, and remove it from the land within thirty days, otherwise it shall go to the owner of the wood[484]. The most important case of all, however, is that of a divided responsibility between the kinsmen and the gegyldan, which Ælfred thus regulates: “If one that hath no paternal kindred fight and slay a man, if then he have maternal relatives, let them pay a third part of the _wer_, his gyldbrethren a third part, and for a third part let him flee. If he have no maternal relatives, let his gyldbrethren pay half, and for half let him flee. And if any one slay such a man, having no relatives, let half be paid to the king, half to the gyldbrethren[485].” It was also the principle of Ælfred’s law, recognized but not introduced by him, that no man should have the power of alienating from his mǽgsceaft, booklands whose first acquirer had entailed them upon the family,—a principle which tends, as far as human means seem capable of ensuring it, to ensure its permanent maintenance[486]. ----- Footnote 482: “Æfter ðǽre ylcan wísan mót mon feohtan mid his geborenum mǽge, gif hine mon on woh onfeohtað; búton wíð his hláford, ðæt we ne lýfað.” Ælf. § 42. Thorpe, i. 90. Footnote 483: “Gif he ðonne ðæs weddie ðe him riht sý tó gelǽstanne and ðæt áleóge, selle mid eádmédum his wæpn und his ǽhta his freóndum tó gehealdanne, and beó feowertig nihta on carcerne on cyninges túne; þrowige ðǽr swá biscop him scrífe, and his mǽgas hine féden gif he self mete næbbe; gif he mǽgas næbbe, oððe ðone mete næbbe, féde cyninges geréfa hine.” Ælf. § 1. Thorpe, i. 60. There is a similar provision in Ælf. § 5. Thorpe, i. 64. Ælf. § 42. Thorpe, i. 90. Footnote 484: Ælf. § 13. Thorpe, i. 70. Footnote 485: