Above: There were detail laws about dogs

There   were   detailed   laws,   too,   about   dogs   and   their responsibilities ;   the hound,  horse,  sheep,  deer,  cow,  pig; about hens,  geese,   bees.2   Dogs  must  have   been vicious, considering the laws made concerning them ;   the milk of the sheep seems to have been reckoned of more value than the wool;  goats’ milk was also regarded as of special value ; clutches were rated as more valuable than eggs ;  the ox and the bull had each a tripartite value :  one-third for the body, one-third for the work, one-third for the expectation.   One-fourth of the dire-fine for the wounding of a ruminating animal was paid for its complete cure according to the fair-judging Diancheacht.    Measurement by grain  and eggs is also referred to, and it is recorded that bees had a feeding-space as far as a bell or the crowing of a cock could be heard.
There was very detailed legislation about reciprocal rights among   families   and   the   proper   distribution   of   property between   the different   degrees—of   five   persons   each—of geilfine, deirbhfine, iarfine, indfine.    The geilfine division was the youngest,  the indfine the  oldest.    When  the  fine exceeded five, a man passed from one division to that next above and finally from the indfine into the community.   Elsewhere we read it was lawful  to   exact  a   fine from   " the whole seventeen men of the family."
The people had a fine conceit of their women. The writer of the poem on Achall in the Dinnseanchus says the six best women in the world, after the mother of God, were Meadhbh, Sadhbh, Sarait, Eire, Eimir, Achall.
Women were suitably rewarded for their work, whether farming, shearing, carding, wool-combing, spinning, tucking, dyeing, milking, calf-rearing, pig-rearing, sheep-rearing, flax-pulling, bee-keeping. They were entitled to give excess of fortune to friends in need, and land within certain limits for the release or relief of friends ; as also to invite and entertain half as many as their husbands. Accordingly, we find them prominent in every sphere:   the druidess;  the abbess, who wielded great power and influence;: the woman-brughaidh the woman-airchinneach, even the woman-judge. The right of daughters to inherit land, says Prof. Sullivan in his Introduction to the "Manners and Customs of Ireland," is said to have been completely established by a legal decision made in the case of Brigh Amhri, daughter of Seanchan, " who pleaded the cause of woman’s right." Several women of the name of Brigh are mentioned in the ancient laws as female judges : some appear to have been connected with each other. The mother of Seanchan, chief judge and poet of Ulster in the time of Conchubhar mac Neasa, was Brigh banbhrughaidh, the female brughaidh; his wife was Brigh Breathach "of the judgments;" his daughter Brigh Amhri, already referred to, the wife of Celtchair mac Uthichair, renowned in the Tain Bo. She was one of the nine women who accompanied the wife of; Conchubhar at Fleadh Bricriu.
Every woman of the Aire class—perhaps of others, too— got a tinncur or tindscra, i.e. marriage portion, from her father ; if he were dead, from her fine. The bridegroom’s wealth should be equal to that of the bride. A bride marrying beneath her got a fortune corresponding to the bridegroom’s rank only; similarly one marrying above her got a portion corresponding to the bridegroom’s rank also. Coibce was a bridal gift by the groom. There was also a wedding collection among friends. Thus : the father is to
foster his daughter wholly or to the extent of one-half, to send full price of fosterage or one-half to the foster-father, and to have! her wed at marriageable age. She is to bring one-third the proceeds of the marriage collection to the man of equal family. The first wedding gift of every daughter is to be j given by her father, two-thirds of the second,
half the third, and a descending proportion to the twenty-first wedding-gift.