8 wheat-grains = pinginn of silver 24 ” (3 pinginns) = screpall 72 ” (3 screpalls) = sheep (B. of A. p. 377) 96 ” (4 screpalls) = dairt heifer 576 ” (6 dairts) = bo, or cow, or unga 1728 ” (3 bo) = cumhal or female slave These silver values as compared with those of the Cymric Codes seem at first sight to be singularly low. The Welsh cow, as we have seen, was valued in silver at three Saxon ounces, and the male and female slave each at a pound of twelve ounces. The Welsh value of the cow was roughly three times, and that of the slave three and one third times, the Irish silver value. This Irish equation between cattle and silver must surely have been made at a time when silver was of quite exceptional value in Ireland. But there is some reason to believe that an earlier equation had been made with gold of a very different character. [Sidenote: An older equation with gold.] Professor Ridgeway has called attention to an interesting story from the life of St. Finian in the Book of Lismore (fol. 24, b.c.), in which an ounce of gold was required for the liberation of a captive, and a ring of gold weighing an ounce was accordingly given. Now, if the ounce of gold is put in the place of the cumhal or female slave, the gold values of the Brehon monetary reckonings would be:-- Cumhal = 576 wheat-grains = ounce Bo or cow = 192 ” = stater or ox unit Dairt heifer = 32 ” = tremissis These gold values, if established, would take their place at once as following the gold system of Constantine, and probably might belong therefore to a period in which the Continental ratio of gold to silver would be 1:12, and the silver values fairly consistent with those of the Welsh and other tribes. The cumhal or female slave would then equal twelve ounces or one pound of silver as in Wales. This, however, must not be taken as proved. It is with the silver values of the Brehon Laws that we are here concerned. And we should be tempted to refer this silver value to the period of Charlemagne’s attempted introduction of the ratio of 1:4 were it not that, as we shall see, it seems to date back to a period some centuries earlier. There is another point of interest in connection with the early Irish monetary reckoning. [Sidenote: The reckoning in scores of Roman ounces, _i.e._ the ‘Mina Italica.’]