CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE BLOOD-SUIT FOR ARNKEL.

AFTER the slaying of Arnkel, the heritage and blood-suit fell to women, and for this reason the blood-suit was not pushed forward so strongly as men deemed they might have looked for over so noble a man. But atonement was settled for the slaying at the Thing, and the only outlawry was that Thorleif Kimbi should abide abroad for three winters, because on him was laid the death-wound of Arnkel.

But because the blood-suit was not so seemly as men deemed befitted such a chief as was Arnkel, the rulers of the land made this law, that for the time to come no woman and no man under sixteen winters old should be suitors in a blood-suit. And that law has ever been holden to since.