The Wolf's Lair

On the 23rd of April, 1014, Brian Boru led an army of Munster and Connacht Irishmen, Manx Viking mercenaries and Dal Caissan warriors to the fields of Clontarf, Ireland. Arrayed against him were nearly 7,000 warriors led by Máel Mórda and Sigtrygg Silkbeard. Brian’s enemies were a hodge-podge force of Norsemen from the Orkney Islands and the Isle of Man as well as local militias from Leinster. The battle that followed has become legendary and considered among the more important conflicts in Irish history.

A rather stirring description of the battle, which purports to be a first person account, comes from a medieval manuscript penned in the 11th century. The full text is lengthy but one passage stands out as it gives the reader a sense of the desperate nature of the fight between the two foes.

“Thus said Maelseachlainn, “Never did I see a battle like it, nor have I heard of its equal: and even if an angel of God from heaven attempted its description, it seems doubtful to me that he could give it. But there was one thing that attracted my notice there; when the battalions first met in conflict, each began to pierce the other, and there was a red ploughed field between us and them, and the sharp wind of the spring from them towards us; and we were not longer there than it would take to milk a cow or two cows, when no man in either host could recognize another, even though it were his son or his brother who was next to him, unless he heard his voice or knew the place where he was, so covered were all, both faces, heads, and garments, with drops of gory blood, borne of the clear cold wind that came from them to us. And even if we wished to perform any valorous deed, we could not do it, for the spears over our heads had became clogged and bound with the human hair, which the wind blew and forced against us, being cut away by well-aimed swords and gleaming axes, so that if was half occupation to ourselves to be disentangling and extricating our spear shafts from another.”

The full text can be found in the book War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill (The War of the Irish with the Foreigners).