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Berserker



 
 
Berserkers (or Berserks) were Norse
Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who speak one of the North Germanic languages as their native language. The meaning of Norseman was "people from the North" and was applied primarily to Nordic people originating from southern and central Scandinavia....
 warrior
Warrior

According to the Random House Dictionary, the term warrior has two meanings. The first Literal and figurative language use refers to "a person engaged or experienced in warfare." The second Literal and figurative language use refers to "a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics...
s who wore coats of wolf or bear skin and were commonly understood to have fought in an uncontrollable rage or trance
Trance

Trance denotes a variety of processes, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden....
 of fury, hence the modern word berserk.

The Úlfhéðnar (singular Úlfhéðinn) mentioned in the Vatnsdœla saga, Haraldskvæði and the Völsunga saga were said to wear the pelt
Fur

Fur is a Hair of any non-human mammal, also known as the pelage. It may consist of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair....
 of a wolf upon their heads when they entered battle.






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Berserkers (or Berserks) were Norse
Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who speak one of the North Germanic languages as their native language. The meaning of Norseman was "people from the North" and was applied primarily to Nordic people originating from southern and central Scandinavia....
 warrior
Warrior

According to the Random House Dictionary, the term warrior has two meanings. The first Literal and figurative language use refers to "a person engaged or experienced in warfare." The second Literal and figurative language use refers to "a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics...
s who wore coats of wolf or bear skin and were commonly understood to have fought in an uncontrollable rage or trance
Trance

Trance denotes a variety of processes, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden....
 of fury, hence the modern word berserk.

The Úlfhéðnar (singular Úlfhéðinn) mentioned in the Vatnsdœla saga, Haraldskvæði and the Völsunga saga were said to wear the pelt
Fur

Fur is a Hair of any non-human mammal, also known as the pelage. It may consist of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair....
 of a wolf upon their heads when they entered battle. (For example: Bernhari, Haimric, Hlodwig, Theudberga, Warinhari, etc.) Úlfhéðnar are sometimes described as Odin
Odin

Odin , is considered the chief ?sir in Norse paganism. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxons Woden and the Old High German Wotan, it is descended from Proto-Germanic *Wodanaz or *Wodanaz....
's special warriors, with the pelt from a wolf and a spear as distinguishing features.

Literary references

The earliest surviving reference to the term berserker is in Haraldskvæði, a skaldic poem composed by Thórbiörn Hornklofi in the late ninth century in honor of King Harald Fairhair, a famous ruler of Norway
Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
. The poem was preserved by Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was two-time elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing....
. In this poem, Harald's army includes a warrior gang of berserkers fighting under the name of the Norse god of war, Tyr
Tyr

File:T?r by Fr?lich.jpgT?r is the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology, portrayed as a one-handed man. In the late Icelandic Eddas, he is portrayed, alternately, as the son of Odin or of Hymir , while the origins of his name and his possible relationship to Tuisto suggest he was once considered the father of...
, in the battle of Hafrsfjord
Battle of Hafrsfjord

The Battle of Hafrsfjord has traditionally been regarded as the battle in which western Norway for the first time was unified under one monarch....
. 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. An alternative etymology
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 is from "bare", meaning unencumbered by a mail shirt.

Snorri Sturluson goes on to mention berserkers in the Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga

The Ynglinga saga was originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson about 1225. He based it on an earlier Ynglingatal which is attributed to the Norwegian 9th century skald ?j???lfr of Hvinir, and which also appears in Historia Norvegi?....
 (chapter 6):

Berserkers appear prominently in a multitude of other sagas
Sagàs

Sag?s is a small town and municipality located in Catalonia, in the comarca of Bergued?. It is located in the geographical area of the pre-Pyrenees....
 and poems including The Saga of Hrólf Kraki
Hrólf Kraki

Hr?lfr Kraki, Hro?ulf, Rolfo, Roluo, Rolf Krage was a legendary Danish king who appears both in Anglo-Saxons and in Scandinavian tradition....
, many of which describe berserkers as ravenous barbarians who loot, plunder, and kill indiscriminately. They also wore bear coats. In Njal's saga
Njál's saga

Nj?ls saga is arguably the most famous of the Sagas of Icelanders. Among Icelanders, the saga is most often referred to simply as Nj?la....
, a berserker is used to test two fires, one built by pagans, the other by Christians; he burns in the Christian fire, "proving" the superiority of the new religion.

Much can be derived about berserkers from Egils saga
Egils saga

Egils saga is an Epic poetry Icelandic saga possibly by Snorri Sturluson , who may have written the account between the years 1220 and 1240 AD....
. Egil's grandfather was named Kveld-Ulf meaning "evening wolf", and this is generally ascribed as meaning he was a werewolf
Werewolf

Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes from the Greek ????????p??, ????? and ?????p?? , are Mythology or folklore humans with the ability to shape shifting into Gray Wolf or anthropomorphism wolf-like creatures, either purposely, by being bitten by another werewolf, or after being placed under a curse....
. 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, the former attempting to kill his son. Egill Skallagrímsson
Egill Skallagrímsson

Egill Skallagr?msson was a Viking skald and the great anti-hero of Icelandic literature.Several accounts tell of him slaughtering as many as 20 or more armed men single-handedly and even dispatching a feared berserker with relative ease....
 himself is described in the saga as attacking opponents with his teeth, ripping out another berserker's jugular vein
Jugular vein

The jugular veins are veins that bring deoxygenated blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava....
 during a duel. Patently, violence and gruesome tragedies permeate the berserker ethos
Ethos

Ethos is a Ancient Greek word originally meaning "accustomed place" , "custom, habit", that can be translated into English language in different ways....
 described in Icelandic sagas such as this one.

History

Hilda Ellis-Davidson draws a parallel between berserkers and the mention by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII
Constantine VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" , was the son of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI the Wise and his fourth wife Zoe Karbonopsina....
 in his book De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae
De Ceremoniis

De Ceremoniis is the Latin title of a work of compilation produced for the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus , and partially revised or updated under Nikephoros II , perhaps under the direction of Basil Lekapenos, the imperial Parakoimomenos....
 ("Book of Ceremonies of the Byzantine court") of a "Gothic
Goths

The Goths were East Germanic tribes who, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, invasion the Roman Empire and later adopted Arian Christianity. In the 5th and 6th centuries, divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy....
 Dance" performed by members of his Varangian Guard
Varangians

The Varangians or Varyags , sometimes referred to as Variagians, were Vikings, Norsemen, who went eastwards and southwards through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th centuries....
 (Norse warriors working in the service of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
), who took part wearing animal skins and masks: she believes this may have been connected with berserker rites.

In 1015 Jarl
Earl

Earl was the Anglo-Saxons form and jarl the Scandinavian form of a title meaning "chieftain" and referring especially to chieftains set to rule a territory in a king's stead....
 Eiríkr Hákonarson
Eiríkr Hákonarson

Eir?kr H?konarson or Eric of Norway or Eric of Hlathir was earl of Tr?ndelag, ruler of Norway and earl of Northumbria. He was the bastard eldest son of earl H?kon Sigur?arson....
 of Norway
Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
 outlawed berserkers. Grágás, the medieval Iceland
Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
ic law-code, sentenced berserker warriors to outlawry. By the 1100s, organized berserker warbands had disappeared.

King Harald Fairhair's use of berserker "shock troops
Shock troops

Shock troops or assault troops are infantry formations and their supporting units, intended to lead an military attack. Shock troop is a loose translation of the German language word Sto?trupp....
" broadened his sphere of influence. Other Scandinavia
Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
n kings used berserkers as part of their army of hirdmen and sometimes ranked them as equivalent to a royal bodyguard
Bodyguard

A bodyguard is a type of security guard or government agent who protects a person?usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure?from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of Confidentiality, or other threats....
. It may be that some of those warriors only adopted the organization or rituals of berserk warbands or used the name as a deterrent or claim of their ferocity.

Still, some scholars consider the frenzied and indomitable berserker and his bloodshot eyes to stand right alongside horned Viking helmets as a "feature of later literary [works] rather than contemporary historical ones", placing the legitimacy of Icelandic sagas as historical records into question. Little Icelandic literature was recorded before the mid-thirteenth century, more than two hundred years after the conversion of Iceland to Christianity. The sagas are broadly interested in history, but they are re-tellings of legend and in no way constitute a proper historical record. The family sagas in particular shed more light on 13th and 14th-century ideas about the 9th-11th centuries than they do on the legendary period itself.

Irish hero Setanta (Cúchulainn) is said to have been a berserker in some legends.

Theories on the causes of the berserkergang

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

A Horizon Book on Vikings claims that some chieftains would hold their berserkers in reserve during a battle. Once a portion of the enemy line appeared to tire or weaken, the chieftains would send the berserkers charging into the enemy ranks to hopefully open a break and even panic
Panic

Panic is a sudden fear which dominates or replaces thinking and often affects groups of people or animals. Panics typically occur in disaster situations, or violent situations which may endanger the overall health of the affected group....
 the enemy. The book also claimed that while on sea voyages close to land, berserkers were sometimes asked to go ashore to find objects on land to wrestle or bash to give vent to their fury.

According to a theory of spirit possession
Spiritual possession

Spirit possession is a concept of paranormal, supernatural and/or superstitious belief in which Soul, deity, daemon s, demons, animism, or other disincarnate entities may take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in behavior....
, 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's spirit
Spirit

The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin "spiritus" . The term is commonly used to refer to a supernatural being which is transcendence and therefore metaphysical in nature....
 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
Ingestion

Ingestion is the consumption of a substance by an organism. In animals, it normally is accomplished by taking in the substance through the mouth into the gastrointestinal tract, such as through eating or drinking....
 of bog myrtle (Myrica gale syn: Gale palustris), a plant that was one of the main spices in alcoholic beverages in Scandinavia
Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
. The drawback is that it increases the hangover
Hangover

A hangover describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of drugs, particularly alcoholic beverages. The most commonly reported characteristics of a hangover include headache, nausea, sensitivity to photophobia and phonophobia, lethargy, dysphoria, and thirst....
 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
Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita, is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita....
 mushroom
Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to those fungi that have a stem , a cap , and gills on the unde...
 to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samuel 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
Zombie

A zombie is a reanimated human corpse. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Haitian Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer....
 characteristics by ethnobotanists in 1983.

A simpler 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
Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus is thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund....
 they also drank bear or wolf blood
Blood

Blood is a specialized bodily fluid that delivers necessary substances to the body's Cell s ? such as nutrients and oxygen ? and transports waste products away from those same cells....
.

Parallels in other cultures

Among the Irish
Irish people

The Irish people are a Western European ethnic group who originate in Ireland, in north western Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolgs, Tuatha D? Danann and the Milesians ?the last group supposedly representing the "pure" Gaelic a...
, Cúchulainn
Cúchulainn

C?chulainn is an Irish mythology hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish folklore and Isle of Man folklore....
 acted in the 'battle frenzy', or 'contortion
Contortion

Contortion is an unusual form of physical display which involves the dramatic bending and flexing of the human body.Contortion is often part of acrobatics and Circus acts....
', and many other famous Irish warriors from the pre-Christian period became possessed and frenzied. They are described in texts such as The Tain
Táin Bó Cúailnge

File:Cuinbattle.jpg is a legendary tale from early Irish literature, often considered an Epic poetry, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse....
 as foaming at the mouth and not calming down after battle until doused with cold water.

Similar behaviour is described in the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
, where warriors who are "possessed" by a god or goddess exhibit superhuman powers.

In historical times, the Spartan warrior Aristodemus
Aristodemus (Spartan)

Aristodemus was a Spartan warrior, one of the famous Three Hundred sent to the Battle of Thermopylae. He was one of only two survivors of the Three Hundred, as he was not present at the last stand....
is mentioned as acting with a berserker-like fury at the Battle of Plataea
Battle of Plataea

The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Ancient Greece city-states, including Sparta, History of Athens, Corinth, Megara and others, and the Achaemenid Empire of Xerxes I....
, to redeem himself from accusations of having acted with cowardice at Thermopylae
Battle of Thermopylae

The Battle of Thermopylae [th?r m?pp?lee] took place over three days during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Battle of Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the pass of Thermopylae ....
.

Some aspects of the Malay phenomenon of running amok
Running amok

Running amok, sometimes referred to as simply amok , is derived from the Malay language/Indonesian language/Filipino language word amuk, meaning "mad with rage " ....
 ("mengamuk" in Malay
Malay language

The Malay language is an Austronesian languages spoken by the Malays and people of other ethnic groups who reside in Peninsular Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau Islands and parts of the coast of Borneo....
) bears a close resemblance to berserkergang.

The Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
 compares King David's "bitter warriors", who fight with such fury that they could overcome many times their number of opponents, with "a bear robbed of her whelps in the field"

Modern usage

The word "berserker" today applies to anyone who fights with reckless abandon and disregard to even his own life, a concept used during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina Wars, the Vietnam Conflict, or often in Vietnam the American War occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975....
 and in Vietnam-inspired literature (Michael Herr
Michael Herr

Michael Herr is a writer and former war correspondent, best known as the author of Dispatches , a memoir of his time as a correspondent for Esquire magazine during the Vietnam War....
's Dispatches
Dispatches (book)

Dispatches is a non-fiction book by Michael Herr that describes the author's experiences in Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire magazine....
) and film (Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an United Statesn film director and screenwriter. Stone came to prominence as a director with a series of films about the Vietnam War, in which he had participated as an American infantry soldier, and his work continues to focus frequently on contemporary political and cultural issues, often controversially....
's Platoon
Platoon (film)

Platoon is a 1986 in film war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, Keith David, John C....
 and Adrian Lyne
Adrian Lyne

Adrian Lyne is an English filmmaker and film producer. He is best known for his films focusing on sexually charged characters, and sultry, eroticized atmospheres which he visually creates in his films by use of filming techniques such as making use of natural light and using a fog machine to create a soft focus....
's Jacob's Ladder
Jacob's Ladder (film)

Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 in film Thriller film directed by Adrian Lyne, based on a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin. It stars Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pe?a, Danny Aiello, and Jason Alexander....
). "Going berserk" in this context refers to an overdose of adrenaline-induced opioids in the human body and brain
Brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate, and most invertebrate, animals. Some primitive animals such as cnidarian and echinoderm have a decentralized nervous system without a brain, while sponges lack any nervous system at all....
 leading a soldier to fight with fearless rage and indifference, a state strikingly similar to that of the 9th century berserkers observed in this article.

Modern soldiers in battle sometimes observe in both themselves and others these occasional bouts of exceptional aggressiveness and feelings of invincibility. The main character in the Red Badge of Courage has a moment in battle where he becomes almost unaware of the danger around him and experiences an irresistible urge to destroy the enemy. Afterwards, he comes back to himself and is only vaguely aware of what has happened. The testimony of Medal of Honor recipients and other combat veterans sometimes recount similar experiences of altered consciousness and heightened aggression during combat . There is however, no real modern military tradition or documentation of the habitual inducement of a 'berserker' mental state. Since modern combat training focuses on intensive drilling, military specialties, and unit cohesion, unpredictable and individualistic 'berserker' combat is most certainly discouraged in modern military science and training.

"Going berserk" is also used colloquially to describe a person who is acting in a wild rage or in an uncontrolled and irrational manner. A recent controversy among civil rights
Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on sexism, religious intolerance, Racism, Homophobia, etc; individual freedom of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom...
 advocates and law enforcement and emergency medicine
Emergency medicine

Emergency medicine is a speciality of medicine that focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of acute illnesses and injuries that require immediate medical attention....
 professionals involves a state called "excited delirium
Excited delirium

Excited delirium is a controversial term used to explain deaths of individuals in police custody, in which the person being arrested or restrained shows some combination of agitation, violent or bizarre behavior, insensitivity to pain, elevated body temperature, or increased strength....
", in which a "berserk" individual dies after the use of restraints.

On Going Berserk


Modern scholars believe that certain examples of berserker rage to have been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria
Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita, is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita....
 (Howard D. Fabing. "On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry." Scientific Monthly. 83 [Nov. 1956] p. 232), or massive quantities of alcohol (Robert Wernick. The Vikings. Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books. 1979. p. 285). While such practices would fit in with ritual usages, other explanations for the berserker's madness have been put forward, including self-induced hysteria, epilepsy, mental illness or genetic flaws (Peter G. Foote and David m. Wilson. the Viking Achievement. London: Sidgewick & Jackson. 1970. p. 285).

The actual fit or madness the berserk experienced was known as berserkergang ("berserker-going"). This condition is described as follows:

"This fury, which was called berserkergang, occurred not only in the heat of battle, but also during laborious work. Men who were thus seized performed things which otherwise seemed impossible for human power. This condition is said to have begun with shivering, chattering of the teeth, and chill in the body, and then the face swelled and changed its color. With this was connected a great hot-headedness, which at last gave over into a great rage, under which they howled as wild animals, bit the edge of their shields, and cut down everything they met without discriminating between friend or foe. When this condition ceased, a great dulling of the mind and feebleness followed, which could last for one or several days" (Fabing, p. 234).

External links

  • (vikinganswerlady.com)