into his own hands the law, but generally he referred his case to a brehon. The penalty awarded went to the person injured or his kinsmen. For homicide or bodily hurt the fine was known as an eric:
Then the Brehons to MacWilliam Burke decreed
An eric upon Clan Barrett for the deed;
And the Lynott's share of the fine,
As foster-father, was nine
Ploughlands and nine score kine. 6
The amount of the penalty varied with the character of the injury and the rank of the person injured, and there were comprehensive tables or codes of what should be paid in a given case. In later days English observers in Ireland, like the poet Spenser, familiar as they were with the English common law, denounced this system of laws of compensation.
Eudoxus: What is that which you call the Brehon law? . . .
Irenaeus: It is a rule of right unwritten, but delivered by tradition from one to another, in which oftentimes there appeareth great shew of equity, in determining the right betweene party and party, but in many things repugning quite both to God's law, and man's: As for example in the case of murder, the Brehon, that is their judge, will compound betweene the murderer, and the friends of the party murdered, which prosecute the action, that the malefactor shall give unto them, or to the child, or wife of him that is slain a recompence, which they call an Eriach: By which vilde law of theirs, many murders amongst them are made up, and smothered . . .
