If thou be a king thou shouldst know
the prerogative of a ruler,
refection according to rank,
contentions of hostings,
sticks (quarrels) in an ale-house
contracts made in drunkeness;
valuations of lands,
measurement by poles;
augmentations of a penalty,
larceny of tree-fruit;
the great substance of land-law:
marking out [fresh] boundaries.
planting of stakes,
the law as to points [of stakes],
partition among co-heirs,
summoning of neighbors,
stone pillars of contest
fighters who fasten [title].
...from a king (?);
the extent of protection;
right [of the fine?] up to the sixth man
in movables and land.
Valid is every neighbor-law
that is contracted by pledges
[and] secured by fines [consisting] of sacks.
greater or smaller
is the value of penalties.
The penalty for breaching [a boundary fence]:
from a bull-calf to a heifer-calf,
from that to a yearling beast,
up to five seoit it extends.
What are the most oppressive[cases of] tree-cutting
for which fools are mulcted ?
The hospitallers of the forest,
the ivied hazel.
A danger from which there is no escape
is the penalty for felling the sacred tree.
Thou shalt not cut a sacred tree
[and escape?] with the fines for the seven noble [trees]
on account of [the fine] of three cows
that is [fixed] for cutting its stem.
There are others, seven
[attoned for] in seoit [due for] undergrowth.
Let me venture for [the benefit] of the immature
[to state] the immune things of the forest:
a [single] cauldron's cooking [-wood] that is cut,
a handful of ripe nuts
to which one stretches not his hand in satiety(?).
Freest of it [all]
is the right of removal
The penalty for the oak,
the penalty for [lobbing its larger limbs
[with its] life-sustaining mast;
the stem-cutting of the yew;
the same [penalty] for cutting the holly tree.
Most oppressive of it [all]
is the penalty of the seven commoners [of the forest]
for [each of] which there is a cow [as payment]:
the stem cutting of the birch,
the peril of the alder,
the undermining of the willow.
Declare restitution for them.
the maiming of the whitethorn
and of the blackthorn;
it (restitution) extends to the undergrowth of the wood,
the undergrowth of fern,
of bog-myrtle, of reeds,
save that these are free to lords.
Stealthy penetration, stealthy intrusion.
driving to and fro.
looking on [idly], tethering,
squatting, burning,
blocking tracks;
overleaping by birds,
deer and pet animals.
overleaping by dogs.
trespass by bees;
in thirds are [payable] penalties
which the preliminary pledge comprehends;
driving forward, traversing,
sudden breaches across the road,
stampeding across holdings.
similarly [over] strands.
Measurement of the fore-end
with a cast by a stripling,
supervising the [observance of] land law,
marking out [fresh] boundaries,
final responsibility for trespass.
Let fines be forthcoming
on the fifth day after the offenses
according to the law of neighbors.
What single ox shares liability with the drove?
What overleaping by a single piglet shares [liability] with the herds?
What are the drivings carried out negligently
for which final responsibility is not enforced?
What are the concealed drivings forward?
On which grazing-expense does not fall?
What are the unauthorized stalkings
which deserve immunity?
What are the larcenies from houses
which do not entail a penalty?
From an Irish legal tract called Crith Gablach dated ca. the seventh century. Posted by Clannada na Gadelica