No one is killed without being first subjected to saraad. If a man be married, let a third of the man’s saraad be given to his wife and let the two shares be placed with the galanas, and after that let the galanas be divided into three shares and let the third share go to the lord as exacting third.[53]
The wife shared in the saraad of her husband, not in the galanas.
The reason why the wife has a share in the saraad and not in the galanas has already been explained. She suffers from the personal affront or insult to her slain husband and shares in the saraad. But she has no blood relationship with her husband, and only the husband’s kindred are therefore entitled to share in the galanas, as her husband’s kindred alone would have been concerned in the feud.
The saraad and the galanas were therefore separate things and subject to separate rules, though both payable on the murder of a tribesman. The galanas proper is what must be regarded in any comparison with Continental wergelds.
That of the ‘uchelwr’ 120 cows; of the young tribesman 60 cows.
The real galanas of the uchelwr or breyr, apart from the saraad, was 120 cows, and that of the young innate boneddig who had received his da but had no family was 60 cows. In one of the Codes his galanas when married is said to be 80 cows.
Now in what currency was the galanas paid? Formerly, according to the Codes, all payments were made in cattle, and the galanas proper was reckoned in scores of cows.
But of what cow? How was the normal cow for practical purposes to be defined? It is a question worth answering, because we may probably take the Cymric method, of valuing the cow as a unit of currency in cattle, as at any rate suggestive of the methods generally adopted by other tribes.
Description of the normal cow.
According to the Venedotian Code the cow was of full normal value when in full milk and until her fifth calf.