The Cymric galanas or death fine was reckoned in cows, and the cows were equated with silver.
Female slaves.
The Irish ‘eric’ of the Brehon laws was stated in cumhals or female slaves, and lesser payments in cows and heifers, and these were all equated with silver.
Silver.
The Anglo-Saxon wergelds were stated, with perhaps one exception, in silver scillings.
The wergelds of the Scandinavian tribes were generally stated in their laws in silver marks, ores, and ortugs, with the equivalent in gold at a ratio of 1:8, and also in cows.
Gold solidi.
Those of the Continental German tribes were generally stated in gold solidi, but the statements were sometimes supplemented by clauses describing the value of the animals, whether oxen or cows, in which the payments were, in practice, still evidently made, at the date of the laws.
Early equation between cattle and gold.
Professor Ridgeway[1] has shown that the equation between cattle and gold may go back a long way into the past of Eastern tradition. The result of his careful inquiry was the brilliant suggestion that the ox—the most usual unit of payment in agricultural countries—was very early and very generally equated in Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greek usage with the gold stater or didrachma.