Goidelic tribal custom differed from Cymric.
Returning now once more to the examination of tribal custom and the structure of tribal society in the case of tribes belonging to the Celtic group, it might be expected that Cymric customs would be likely most closely to accord with those of the Celtic tribes of Ireland, Brittany, and Gaul. But it must be remembered that the Cymry whose customs are contained in the Codes, whatever their original Continental position may have been, are supposed to have come into Wales from the North, with Cunedda and his sons. The Codes therefore probably represent the customs of the Cymry of ancient Cumbria north of the Solway Frith, rather than those of the Britons, whether Goidels or Cymry, dwelling in South Wales and more or less subject for generations to Roman rule.
If the theory of the emigration from Wales and Cornwall into Brittany, as the consequence of the Saxon invasion, be correct, the Britons who emigrated into Brittany may never have shared the peculiar customs of the immigrants into Wales following upon the conquests of Cunedda and his sons. They may have had more in common with the Goidelic tribes of South Wales than with the Cymric newcomers into Wales.
These considerations may well prepare the way for the recognition of differences as well as resemblances between Cymric and Irish tribal custom.
The system of payments for homicide amongst the ancient tribes of Ireland as described in the Brehon Laws differed widely from that of the Cymric Codes.[62]
In the first place, the Brehon laws describe no scale of galanas or wergeld, directly varying with the social rank of the person killed. Gradations of rank there were indeed, and numerous enough. But there appears to have been only one coirp-dire, or body-fine, the same for all ranks, namely seven cumhals or female slaves—the equivalent of twenty-one cows.
The Brehon coirp-dire of all tribesmen the same: six cumhals and one added.
And when this coirp-dire, or price of the body or life of a man, is further examined, it is found to consist of two parts: (1) one cumhal of compensation (aithgin); (2) the six cumhals of the coirp-dire proper.
In the tract ‘Of every Crime’[63] it is stated:—
If the man who is dead has a son, he takes the cumhal of compensation alone. If not alive, his father is to take it. If not alive, his brother; if he be not alive, the nearest person to him is to take it. And then the coirp-dire is divided: