Beserker

The term berserker comes from Old Norse berserkr (plural berserkir), meaning "bare of shirt", meaning a warrior fighting without armor (debated), or "bear shirt", alluding to wearing clothing made of bear fur.

A wild Norse warrior of great strength and ferocious courage, who fought on the battle-field with a frenzied fury known as the ‘berserker rage’; often a lawless bravo or freebooter. Also fig. and attrib. Now usu. as adj., frenzied, furiously or madly violent; esp. in phr. to go berserk."

Some berserks also took names with bjørn in them in reference to a bear.[citation needed] The pre-battle ritual of the berserker included ritualistic group chants and dances, serving to work the warriors into a fighting rage; the rituals also seemed to give the berserkers the feeling of invulnerability, causing them to fight with a reckless disregard for their own safety. It is possible that these rituals also included psychoactives (the most commonly suggested psychoactive being the Amanita muscaria species of mushroom) mixed with mead, allowing the berserker to disregard pain and wounds in battle

Another supposition about berserkers is that wearing bear or wolf skins served as a symbol of their proclivity for worshipping the spirit of the bear. Siberian and Sámi peoples venerated the bear (see bear worship), although there is no direct evidence of similar veneration in Viking Age Norse culture. Some scholars think that the berserker believed he was "possessed" by the spirit of the bear, having its strength and ferocity, and some sagas even suggest that the berserker could take on the animal's shape and force. In that respect, they are the basis of fantasy characters like Beorn in The Hobbit. A variant form of berserker was the ulfhednar who wore the skin of a wolf.

Hilda Ellis-Davidson draws a parallel between berserkers and the mention by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in his book De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae ("Book of Ceremonies of the Byzantine court") of a "Gothic Dance" performed by members of his Varangian Guard (Norse warriors working in the service of the Byzantine Empire), who took part wearing animal skins and masks: she believes this may have been connected with berserker rites (Hilda R. Ellis-Davidson. Pagan Scandinavia. NY: Frederick A. Praeger. 1967. p. 100).

Literary references

The earliest surviving reference to the term berserker is in Haraldskvæði, a skaldic poem written by Thórbiörn Hornklofi in the late ninth century in honour of King Harald Fairhair, the famous ruler of Norway. The poem was preserved by Snorri Sturluson. In this poem, Harald's army includes a warrior gang of berserkers fighting under his name at the battle of Hafrsfiord. In it, they are described as Ulfheðnar = "men clad in wolf skins". This grounds a connection between bears and wolves in Norse warrior culture and the common assumption that the word "berserker" itself originates from men wearing the skin of the bear. Snorri Sturluson goes on to mention berserkers in the Ynglinga saga: "his [Odin's] men rushed forward without armor, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were as strong as bears or wild bulls, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon themselves" (Ch. 6). Berserkers appear prominently in a multitude of other sagas and poems including The Saga of Hrólf Kraki, many of which describe berserkers as ravenous barbarians who loot, plunder, and kill indiscriminately.

Much can be derived about berserkers from Egils saga. Egil's grandfather was named Kveld-Ulf meaning "evening wolf", and this is generally ascribed as meaning he was a werewolf. Kveld-Ulf's son, referred to as Skalla-Grimm, was a berserker. Kveld-Ulf and Skalla-Grimm are both depicted as irascible and violent throughout the saga. One commits suicide and the latter kills his offspring. Egill Skallagrímsson himself is described in the saga as attacking opponents with his teeth (namely when he ripped out a beserker's jugular vein during a duel). Patently, violence and gruesome tragedies permeate the berserker ethos described in Icelandic sagas such as this one.

Berserkers fought with crazed or drugged strength, heedless of danger. They worked themselves up into a bloodlust – berserker rage – before battles, banging their helmets with their weapons, biting their shields, and howling. They were said to be immune to pain (or even immune to weapons) in battle. In their fury they would attack their enemies but also everything else in their path, sometimes even their own people and allies.

Allies to the raging Norsemen were wary of berserkers. Fearing that their own homesteads and families might be targeted by the berserkers' violent instability, friendly Norsemen kept women and children at bay.

In 1015 Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson of Norway outlawed berserkers. Grágás, the medieval Icelandic law-code, sentences berserker warriors to outlawry. By the 1100s organized berserker warbands had disappeared.

King Haraldr Fair-Hair's use of berserker "shock troops" became a sphere of influence. Other Scandinavian kings used berserkers as part of their army of hirðmen and sometimes ranked them as equivalent to a royal bodyguard. It may be that at least some of those warriors just adopted the organization or rituals of berserk warbands or used the name as a deterrent or claim of their ferocity, as it is doubtful any king would have accepted a band of maniacs as his closest men.

Another berserker story involved the Hound of Culain, who on several occasions enters this state of mind.

Theories regarding the causes of berserker behavior

Theories about what causes berserker behavior include spiritual possession, ingestion of materials with psychoactive properties, psychological processes, and medical conditions.

According to a theory of spirit possession, the berserk rage was achieved through possession by the animal spirit of either a bear or a wolf. Berserkers would cultivate an ability to allow the animal spirit to take over their body during a fight. This is seen as a somewhat peculiar application of animal totemism.

Botanists have suggested the behavior might be tied to ingestion of bog myrtle (Myrica gale syn: Gale palustris), a plant that was one of the main spices in alcoholic beverages in Scandinavia. The drawback is that it increases the hangover headache afterwards. Drinking alcoholic beverages spiced with bog myrtle the night before going to battle might have resulted in unusually aggressive behavior.

The notion that Nordic Vikings used the fly agaric mushroom to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samual Ödman in 1784. Ödman based his theory on reports about the use of fly-agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. In addition, the injection of bufotenine from [Bufo marinus] toad skin into humans was shown to produce similar symptoms to the "Berserker" descriptions. These findings, first examined by Howard Fabing in 1956, were later linked to the induction of zombie characteristics by ethnobotanists in 1983.

A UK television programme in 2004 tested the possible use of fly agaric and alcohol by training a healthy volunteer in the use of Viking weapons, then evaluating his performance under the influence of fly agaric or alcohol compared to no influence. It was shown that use of fly agaric or alcohol severely reduced his fighting ability, and the tentative conclusion drawn was that berserk state was achieved psychologically; otherwise, berserkers would have been too easy to kill. Of course, this does not take into account the mindset that the berserker likely would have attempted to place himself in.

A simple theory attributes the behavior to drunken rage. It is also possible that berserkers worked themselves into their frenzy through purely psychological processes, perhaps using frenzied rituals and dances. According to Saxo Grammaticus they also drank bear or wolf blood.