Now if a man has done the slaying of a madman, if a son slays his father, or a father his son, or a brother his brother or any of his sisters and brothers, or a child slays its mother or a mother her child, then he forfeits the inheritance he ought to take. The one next to him in kin takes that inheritance, and the King shall have it rather than he. But he shall stay in the land and be shriven and keep all that is his. [Sidenote: No wergeld within the family.] In the Gulathing law the kindred within which there is no wergeld is thus the actual family, and it is in full accord with the instance in Beowulf in which the old father is represented as having to put up with the presence of a son by whose arrow another of his sons had been slain, such a crime being one which under tribal custom could not be avenged. Turning now to the amount of the wergeld of the Gulathing law and the Frostathing law, it must again be remarked that there are in these laws varying accounts of it. [Sidenote: The wergeld of the Frostathing law of later date awarded in marks of gold.] In the first place there are some avowedly of later date than others. Thus, in Frostathing VI. 1 the description of the wergeld is commenced as follows:-- Her hefr upp oc segir í frá því er flestum er myrkt oc þyrftu þó marger at vita, fyrir því at vandræði vaxa manna á millum en þeir þverra er bæði höfðu til vit oc góðan vilja, hvesso scipta scylldi ákveðnum bótum ef þær ero dœmdar, fyrer því at þat er nú meiri siðr at ánemna bœtr, hvesso margar mercr gulls uppi sculu vera epter þann er af var tecinn, oc velldr þat at marger vito eigi hvat laga bót er, er þó at vissi, þá vilia nú fáer því una. En Frostoþings bóc scipter lagabót hveriom epter sínum burð oc metorði, en ecki hinum bótum er þeir ofsa eða vansa er í dómum sitia oc sáttmál gera. Here begins and is told that which to most is dark and yet many had need to know, because difficult matters increase among men and those grow fewer who both had the wits and the goodwill for it,--how to divide the fixed _bóts_ (bœtr) if they are adjudged, _for it is now more the custom to fix the bóts, how many marks of gold_ shall be paid on account of him who was slain, and the cause of that is that many know not what the lawful _bót_ is, and though they knew it, few will now abide by it. _But the Frostathing book divides the lawful bót_ to every one according to his birth and rank, and not those _bóts_ (bœtr) which they that sit in courts and make terms of peace put too high or too low. Here the writer clearly refers back to the ancient Frostathing book as the authority for the ‘lawful bót,’ but on examination he seems to add certain additional bóts which the courts now include in the round amount of so many gold marks awarded by them in each case as it comes before them.