Two antisocial brothers live apart. They kill a neighbor for no good reason and refuse to pay compensation so they are outlawed. This means not that some law enforcement agency will arrest them but that anyone can and should kill them. Hiding in the wilderness, they raid, steal and kill until they are driven into another area where they commit more murders but are still "'...too woodscrafty to chase down...'" (p. 17), although hunters continue to find traces of their presence.
A woman lives alone in a shieling. A watch is set so that, when the brothers are seen to enter the shieling, men can quickly be summoned to surround it. The woman is used as bait and it does not matter that she is being raped while the men assemble. The brothers are killed. Gunnhild, visiting the shieling, was nearly raped so that, for her, this was a formative experience.
We still have "outlaws," families that quarrel with their neighbors, take the law into their own hands and are banned by the court from visiting certain parts of town. If everyone were like that, then society would be impossible and humanity would not exist. We are grateful for the degree of civilization that we possess and hope that it will be enhanced, not destroy itself.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And it could be said that by using fines to penalize many offenses, Anglo/American law still uses a form of weregild. Would it be better, perhaps, for fines to be paid to the victims of crime, rather than to the state? And perhaps for the victim of a crime to have a say in how the large the fine/weregild should be?
Sean
Sean,
I think that "compensation" is paid in some cases?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm not sure, but I think that is sometimes done. Mostly in civil cases involving damage to persons or property.
Sean
Kaor, Sean,
That raises the problem that if the victim can collect fines from the alleged offender, people have an incentive to make false accusations that they've been victimized, and then we would have increased reason to distrust the testimony of accusers, even those who are telling the truth. There don't seem to be any perfect solutions here.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Nicholas,
No perfect solutions in an imperfect world. Is there a perfect world elsewhere in the multiverse?
Oaul.
Kaor, Nicholas!
You raised valid points. I think the Scandinavians tried to limit or reduce the scope for the harm done by false accusations by defining how MUCH you could get in weregilds according to the social status and average wealth of the accused.
But, as you said, there doesn't seem to be any perfect solutions on how to control and penalize crime.
Sean
There was a guy I used to know who needed to crash somewhere, having been evicted from his parent's home. I allowed him to stay at mine for a few nights but one of my kidneys failed and I was rushed off to hospital to have it removed. When I returned from hospital, I found that a watch I treasured had been stolen. I accused this so-called friend and he admitted it. In a fit of pique I reported the theft to the police. When in court I was asked the value of the watch, I said £70. I was awarded my £70 plus, I think, £30 in costs. It didn't get me my watch back but it was adequate compensation.This seems to me to be a reasonable response to a crime and I would far rather see this kind of compensation paid than see the culprit unnecessarily and pointlessly jailed.
Hi, Ketlan!
First, I'm sorry one of your kidneys failed and needed to be removed. I know, from what Paul has said, that you have serious health problems. I hope they can be successfully managed!
Second, I agree with how you handled the matter of your stolen watch. And, I again agree, for many fairly "minor" criminal offenses, having the perpetrator pay compensation to the victim for the injury done is far better than having him pointlessly imprisoned. And I'm sorry this guy proved to be a false friend who would steal from a benefactor.
Sean
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