There is reason to believe that tradition supplied the place of written records for many ages after the extinction of the Druidical superstition. Hence among the Scots, traditionary usages and local customs long supplied the place of positive or written laws. It is a mistake to suppose, as some writers have done, that the law consisted in the mere will of the Brehon or judge. The office of Breitheamhuin or Brehon was hereditary, and it is quite natural to infer, that under such a system of jurisprudence, the _dictum_ of the judge might not always comport with what was understood to be the _common law_ or practice; but from thence, to argue that the will of the judge was to be regarded as the law itself, is absurd, and contrary to every idea of justice. As the principle of the rude jurisprudence of the Celtic tribes had for its object the reparation, rather than the prevention of crimes, almost every crime, even of the blackest kind, was commuted by a mulct or payment. Tacitus observes in allusion to this practice, that it was “a temper wholesome to the commonwealth, that homicide and lighter transgressions were settled by the payment of horses or cattle, part to the king or community, part to him or his friends who had been wronged.” The law of Scotland long recognised this system of compensation. The fine was termed, under the Brehon law, _eric_, which not only signifies a reparation, but also a fine, a ransom, a forfeit. Among the Albanian Scots it was called _cro_, a term preserved in the _Regiam Majestatem_, which has a whole chapter showing “the _cro_ of ilk man, how mikil it is.”[105] This law of reparation, according to O’Connor, was first promulgated in Ireland, in the year 164.[106] According to the _Regiam Majestatem_, the _cro_ of a villain was sixteen cows; of an earl’s son or thane, one hundred; of an earl, one hundred and forty; and that of the king of Scots, one thousand cows, or three thousand _oras_, that is to say, three oras for every cow.