It would seem that Hrothgar had been formerly at feud with the Heathobeards, that Froda had been killed in the feud, and that the marriage of Freaware to Froda’s son, Ingeld, was to close the feud. But Beowulf repeats aside to Hygelac that he does not think much of the chances of a long continuance of peace between Scyldings and Heathobeards (2030). Well may it mislike the ruler of the Heathobeards and every thane of that people when the lady goeth into hall with a prince born of Danes, amidst the high company; upon him do glisten heirlooms of their ancestors, ringed harness, once Heathobeardic treasure, while they could keep the mastery of those weapons and until they in an unlucky moment led to that buckler play their dear comrades and their own lives. Then saith one over the beer, one who observes them both, an old lance fighter.… ‘Canst thou, my friend, recognise the blade, the precious steel, which thy father carried into battle, wearing his helmet for the last time, where the Danes slew him? … and the masters of the battlefield were the fiery Scyldings! Now here a boy of one of those banesmen walketh our hall … wearing the treasure which by right should have been thine!’ So urged and egged on at every turn with galling words, at last the moment comes that for his father’s deeds the lady’s thane sleepeth bloodspattered after the falchion’s bite, life-doomed! The other escapes alive! By-and-by the sworn oaths of the warriors on either side will be broken, when in Ingeld’s mind rankle war purposes, and care has lessened his domestic sorrow! Therefore I deem not the loyalty of the Heathobeards nor the alliance with the Danes secure, or the friendship firm! (2033-2069, slightly abridged.) What a consistent light this passage throws incidentally on the quarrels which, in spite of the Geats and Swedes being bound together in friendship by the marriage of Beowulf’s mother, broke out again and again, according to the poem, between the two kindreds--quarrels in which Beowulf himself is represented as taking no part, presumably because, according to tribal custom, his blood relationship to both kindreds was a bar to his taking up the feud or assuming the part of the avenger! And how the whole story of Beowulf’s paternal kindred reveals the melancholy fact that, however great the force of tribal custom in controlling feuds, the wild human nature of hot-blooded tribesmen was wont to break through restraints and often ended in the outlawry of tribesmen and the breaking up of kindreds! [Sidenote: Summary of the evidence of Beowulf.] To sum up the results obtained from the study of tribal custom as incidentally revealed in Beowulf:--