Íbait fíaich lúgbairt lacht!

(will drink * ravens * of (battle) garden * milk)

Ravens will drink the milk of battle!

From a poem of foreboding that Dubthach chanted to the army of Medb and Ailill at the outset of the Táin (LU & YBL). It employs two deceptively domestic metaphors for battle. “Lubgort” (here metathesized to “lúgbart”) was used poetically in the sense of “garden of heroism” = battlefield, and “lacht” (milk) here becomes “blood”.

Topics: War