an island near the mouth of this river a remarkable inscription in Gothic runes was discovered on a stone weighing many tons.[1] The size and weight of the stone are sufficient to prove that this inscription was no wanderer. It could not have been carried from place to place or from country to country, as a ring or brooch with runic characters might have been. The inscription is in pure Gothic, such as Bishop Ulphilas wrote for the Mœsa-Goths who migrated from the north and settled near the mouth of the Danube. This inscription is not perfect, but what remains has been translated as follows:
‘Three daughters shared . . . Wodarid st.
They the heiresses share the heritage.’
The daughters of the Gothic race still share the heritage in Dalecarlia, in Frisia, and, after the sons, they still share it by ancient custom in Kent and other parts of England. They did not share it in Norway, nor in Old Saxony, not among the Angles, nor in the tribes of Germany closely connected with them. Among the Continental Angle tribes the distinct feature of succession which can be most strongly traced is that of male inheritance. This is found in the laws of the Angles and Warings that were sanctioned by Charlemagne. Similarly, among the Continental Saxons the rule of inheritance gave the preference to descendants of males over those of females as far as the fifth generation.[2]
In England there is a reference to the descent of land being limited to male succession in a charter dated A.D. 963, relating to a lease, for three lives, of land at Cotheridge in Worcestershire. In this it is expressly stipulated that the land is to descend on the spear hand.[3] Still further back the Anglian custom of limiting the succession to males must have prevailed in parts of Mercia, for in A.D. 784 Offa made a grant of land in which the
