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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dogbrain" data-source="post: 1540698" data-attributes="member: 14980">Murder by lying-in-wait or other cowardly means (poison, trap, hiring an assassin) is punished by slow, painful, publically entertaining execution or outlawry.Striking someone dead in an argument can merit outlawry or the maximum wergild.Demanding a fair fight and killing someone in it is a sad thing, but it was entirely with honor--unless the fight wasn't actually fair, then it's a form of murder by lying-in-wait.Stealing cattle in a raid is just part of living in the tribes.  Stealing cattle at night by stealth is punished by being trampled to death by cattle.  Horses have similar status.Stealing food is punished by imposed labor unless during a famine, then it is punished by starvation to death.Stealing goods or other livestock is punished by a fine, by lashes, enslavement, or mulching, depending upon the influence of the victim and how much is stolen.Stealing a man's personal weapons merits being slain with those weapons.There are other punishments, and they depend upon all kinds of minute details regarding the goods, the manner of theft, what damage accrued from the theft--all that sort of exception after exception that one finds in a system of customary and uncodified law (old Common Law, essentially).In many of the above cases, the aggrieved may instead refuse the legal penalty and declare feud.</blockquote>