As in the Frostathing law so also in the Gulathing law (clause 316, p. 104) there is a statement of wergeld, avowedly of a late date and added under the name of Biarne Marðarson, who lived about A.D. 1223. And this, too, seems to belong to a time when the amount of the wergeld was awarded by some public authority in so many marks of gold. He takes the case of a wergeld of six marks of gold and shows how it ought to be divided; and then the case of a wergeld of five marks of gold and shows how that should be divided—‘What each shall take of five marks of gold’ and so on—just as was done by the writer in the Frostathing law.
One might have supposed from this that, as the method of awarding fixed amounts and the amounts to be divided in gold marks were the same, so the groups and the persons included in them would have corresponded also. But they differ considerably.
Biarne Marðarson up to a certain point follows the same scheme as the writer in the Frostathing.
In his division of six marks of gold he, too, draws a line at the amount of 27 marks, and he also divides this amount into thirds and gives two thirds to one group and one third to the other. The son of the slain and the brother of the slain form the first group and take 18 marks, and a second group take 9 marks, the two together taking 27 marks.
The group who together take 9 marks, like the Nefgildi-men of the Frostathing, embraces however by no means the same relatives as are included in the latter. The only persons included are the father’s brother and his children, i.e. first cousins or brœðrungs of the slain, but among them are included the sons of concubines and of female first cousins. And after the mention of these is the statement, ‘All that these men take amounts to 27 marks and 2 aurar.’ Out of the remainder of the 6 gold marks or 48 silver marks other relations take to the ‘fifth man’ on the male line and the sixth on the female line.
Biarne Marðarson seems, like the writer in the Frostathing law, to have had to some extent a free hand in the division. It is clear that there was much variety in the course adopted. Nor does he seem to have been by any means so systematic and accurate as the other writer. The silver amounts, when added up, do not so accurately correspond with the six gold marks to be divided.
Earlier wergeld of the Gulathing law. In silver marks and cows.
We turn, then, from these later statements to what seems likely to be an older statement of the Norse wergeld, viz. that which commences at clause 218 of the Gulathing law.
It describes the division of the wergeld of a ‘hauld’ or ‘odal-born’ man, and it begins with the explanation that the ‘mannsgiöld’ or wergeld decreases and increases from this as other retts.
It describes the various amounts both in silver marks and in cows, which the other statements do not, and this, so far as it goes, is a sign of antiquity.