Weregild

[7] A weregild or wergeld was a defined value placed on every man graded according to rank, used as a basis of a fine or compensation for murder, disablement, injury, and certain other serious crimes against that person.

[13] Weregild from Norðleoda Laga:[14] Wergild first appears in the European historical record in 500 AD in the Lex Burgundionum,[15] but the concept of paying blood-money is found widely in many pre-modern societies.

[16] Scholars debate if wergild was a traditional Germanic legal concept, or if it developed from a Roman predecessor.

There used to be something of a "basis" fee for a standard "free man" that could then be multiplied according to the social rank of the victim and the circumstances of the crime.

In the Migration period, the standard weregild for a freeman appears to have been 200 solidi (shillings), an amount reflected as the basic fee due for the death of a churl (or ceorl) both in later Anglo-Saxon and continental law codes.

During the reign of Charlemagne, his missi dominici required three times the regular weregild should they be killed whilst on a mission from the king.

Technically this amount cannot be called a weregild, because it was more akin to a reimbursement to the owner for lost or damaged property.

He is 'eating a salmon and half dozing' on the river banks of Andvari's Falls when Loki kills him by throwing a stone at him.

[22] In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, lines 156–158 Grendel refuses to settle his killings with payment or recompense, and at lines 456–472, Hroðgar recalls the story of how Ecgþeow (Beowulf's father) once came to him for help, for he had slain Heaðolaf, a man from another tribe called the Wulfings, and either could not pay the wergild or they refused to accept it.

In Rick Riordan's novel The Hammer of Thor, Hearthstone, an elf, must pay a wergild for his brother Andiron's death when they were children.

Hearthstone, the older brother, was distracted and playing with rocks when a Brunnmigi emerged from a well and killed Andiron.

To pay his wergild, he had to cover every single hair with gold earned from his father, generally by doing chores.