APPENDIX 6
Athgabdl bech 4 distraint of bees \ We print here a normalised version of §1 1
of 4 a text on the forms of distraint ’ edited in Ce/tica x 72-86 by Dr. Binchy, who
dates it to the 8th or 9th century. §11 survives in only one manuscript (H.3.18
p. 377a = CIH 898.19-27). Merely orthographical variations are not included in
the critical apparatus below.
(a) Athgabal bech: iadath foraib; (b) cid ara1 ngaibther for
bechaib? ar chin a mbel; (c) ar at he teora fogla2 ata annsam file3
do thir orgain do bechaib -| echaib i mucaib. (d) Co fortongar4
forsna bechaib fo bith is annsae athgabal5 neich diib sech in n-aile?
(e) ni annsae, dotet fer tire co fiadnaib lais, tideal no barr blaithe
lais for6 ti inna7 mbech (f) -j teit iarum do thimthirecht8 in lestair co
fiadnaib lais conda accai9 cosin comardu adgneth (?)10 side -j iarum
fortongar forru; (g) acht in11 tairgille12 doairgelltar13 do is fochraicc
do thorud, no saithe do do sil bech co rabat beich lais feissin;
(h) mani atma (?)14 fer tire donaircelltar15 do sin, is e smacht fil fris
dilse neich adroir diib inna thir.
1 ar H. 2 fodla H. 3 filet H. 4 forcongar H. 5 ath- H.
Read athgabal or aithgne 4 to recognise ’. 6 fori H. 7 i«a H.
8 timtirech H. 9 cowdaccai H. 10 adgnith H. 11 restore to
a? 12 tairgillne H. 13 donairgelltor H. 14 mowata H. 15 doaircelltor
H.
(a) To distrain bees: shut them in. (b) What are bees seized for?
On account of wrong-doing by their mouths, (c) For these are the
three injuries to land which are most difficult to assess: damage by
bees, horses and pigs, (d) How is liability fastened by oath on bees,
since it is impossible to distrain ( or recognise) one of them apart
from another? (e) Answer: the owner of the land comes in pursuit
of the bees accompanied by witnesses, [carrying] a bunch of cornstalks (?) or a flowering branch in his hand; (f) he then goes round
the hive accompanied by witnesses until he sees them with the mark
which he can recognise (?) and then liability is fastened by oath on
them, (g) But the fore-pledge that is given to him is [either] payment
out of their produce or a swarm of the bees’ progeny for him (the
plaintiff) so that he may have bees himself, (h) If the owner of the
land does not admit (?) that this fore-pledge be given to him, the
penalty for it (trespass by the bees) is immunity for [destroying] any
of them lie may have caught on his land.
igo
APPENDIX 6
DISCUSSION
It is clear from BB (§§3, 7, 8 etc.) that bees were considered capable of
committing grazing-trespass ( fair see , or cun) like other domestic animals. The
above passage purports to explain how the identity of trespassing bees can be
ascertained. The main difficulty is how to interpret the tideal no barr blaithe
(e) which the land-owner carries when pursuing the bees. Dr. Binchy suggests
‘ a bunch of corn-stalks (?) or a flowering branch ’ identifying tideal with Mod.
Ir. teadhall, tadhal ‘ a handful of hay or straw \ However, it is difficult to see
how the carrying of either a bunch of corn-stalks or a flowering branch would
serve to identify trespassing bees. It is possible that carrying them was merely
symbolic, but the reference to ‘ the mark which he can recognise (?)’ suggests
that they had a practical purpose.
So far as we have been able to discover, the only early method of identifying
individual bees was to sprinkle them with flour (Aristotle: Historia Animalium
627bl9). Experiments described in the World of the Honeybee pp. 189-195 have
shown that each individual foraging honeybee generally makes repeated visits
to the same group of flowers. She does not seek other sources of nectar or pollen
until this source has been exhausted. After each visit she returns directly to her
hive with what she has collected.
These facts would make it quite easy for a land-owner to demonstrate to
witnesses with the aid of flour that bees belonging to a particular bee-keeper were
committing ‘ grazing-trespass ’ on his land. If he sprinkled flour on the bees as
they visited flowers on his land, a witness could stand by the suspect bee-hive(s)
and examine the bees which entered for traces of flour on their backs.
We therefore raise the possibility that blaithe might be gen. sg. of an otherwise
unattested *blath (earlier *mlath) ‘ meal, flour.’ This *blath would be cognate
with W. blaut, Bret, bleud from the root meld- ‘ to grind ’ (JEW 716). One can
compare the adjective blaith (earlier mlaith ) ‘ ground, polished, smooth, etc.’
from the same root. However, there are four serious objections. (1) The usual
Irish word for ‘ meal, flour ’ is men (later min). (2) W. blaut and Bret, bleud are
masculine, whereas the postulated Irish *blath would have to be a feminine <7-stem
to give gen. sg. blaithe. (3) Teadhall (tadhal) seems always to be used of a handful
of hay or straw, and never of a granular substance such as flour. (4) If blaithe
means ‘ of flour ’, no barr must be regarded as an erroneous gloss on tideal,
inserted by a later scribe.
To our knowledge, grazing-trespass by bees is not regarded as an offence in
any other legal system, and might seem a whimsical aberration on the part of
the early Irish lawyers. However, there is some logical basis for including beetrespass as an offence in the law of neighbourhood. Honeybees generally collect
nectar within a radius of about a mile from their hives. They convert this nectar
into honey in the hive and store it in honeycombs. The amount of nectar
produced in any given area is finite. Consequently, if a land-owner had a
particularly good stand of nectar-bearing flowers, the foraging of his neighbours’
bees could reduce the honey-yield of his own hives.
This seems to be the explanation provided in legal commentary in H.3.18
(CIH 788.11) to which Liam Breatnach has kindly drawn our attention. The
commentator explains why grazing-trespass by horses, pigs and bees is most
serious (cf. (c) above): geilit eich co huir, claidhit muca co grian 7 beirit beich
blasa tora eisi ‘ horses graze down to the ground, pigs dig down to the clay, and
bees take away taste and produce from it ’ (i.e. from the land, tir, mentioned
earlier in the commentary).
APPENDIX 6
I9T
What exactly the commentator means by blasa and torn is uncertain. Bias
(O. Ir. mlas) normally means ‘ taste, flavour ’ but neighbouring bees could only
reduce the quantity rather than the quality of a man’s honey. We take torad
(often written tora in late MSS) to refer to ‘ nectar ’ here, as at BB § §8, 20, 21.
APPENDIX 7
Bees in the Welsh Laws
A short section on bees is a standard element in MSS of Cyfraith Hywel, the
Law of Hywel. The different versions fall into two main groups: first, two closely
related versions, to be called here lor. I and lor. II, in MSS of a lawbook from
Gwynedd, Llyfr Iorwerth-, secondly, a wider, less closely knit, collection of
versions in MSS generally associated with South Wales. The main concern of
these texts is to state the values of different colonies of bees. They thus form a
part of a series of short sections each defining the legal worth of an animal. The
evidence suggests that in origin the legal worth was intended as some kind of
approximation to an average market price (e.g. Llyfr Iorwerth, ed. A. R. Wiliam,
§§123-128, contains references to sales and loans). The texts seem to have in
mind disputes as to whether, for example, a given defect in a horse that has been
sold as sound should entitle the purchaser to some of his money back, and if so
how much. The focus of interest of the Welsh texts is, therefore, generally different
from that of BB.
The existence of two distinct versions in MSS of Llyfr Iorwerth was not noted
by Dr. Wiliam in his edition, and his conspectus of the MSS (pp. xliii-xliv)
should accordingly be corrected as follows:—
lor. I: A f. 35r; B f. 53v; E f. 41r/p. 83.
Ior. II: A f. 36v; D p. 143; E f. 41v/p. 84; G f. 107v; K f. 15r/p. 49.
It will be noticed that two MSS contain both versions (A and E). Ior. I has been
published from B in Dr. Wiliam’s edition, §135 (though the italicized words do
not form a part of this section). Both versions are available from A in
Gwenogvryn Evans’s Facsimile of the Chirk Codex pp. 95 and 98 (in Evans’s
pagination). Aneurin Owen’s edition (VC. III. xvi) is based on Ior. I but material
from Ior. II is introduced in square brackets. Since Llyfr Iorwerth is the most
accessible text it will be sufficient to give here Ior. II from the only early MS
whose variants for this text were not given by Aneurin Owen (N.L.W., Peniarth
MS. 35, Owen’s G, s. XIV1). Clear errors are corrected and important variants
noted.
Gwerth gwenyn
1 . Gwerth lienlle6 pedeir ar
ugeint.
2. Gwerth kynheit un ar
pymthec.
3. Gwerth tar6heit deudec k.k ’.
4. Y tryded heit vyth k.k’ a tal.
5. Yr heit gyntaf a del o’r
kynheit, deudec k.k’ a tal.
The value of bees
1 . The value of an old colony,
24d.
2. The value of the first swarm,
16d.
3. The value of the bull-swarm,
1 2d.
4. The third swarm is worth 8d.
5. The first [secondary] swarm
that comes from the first
[primary] swarm is worth
1 2d.