Viking Berserker

December 14, 2023

The berserker (in Old Norse berserkr, plural berserkir) refers to a stealth warrior who goes into a sacred fury (in Old Norse berserksgangr, "walk, pace of the fierce warrior") making him overpowered and capable of the most inconceivable feats.

Although the character appears especially in the sagas and the Nordic and Germanic mythologies (examples : Arnwulf, Bernhari, Berthramm, Gundhramm, Haimric, Hlodwig, Richari, Theudberga, Warinhari, Wilhem, etc.), it is nevertheless attested in more historical sources, such as the Haraldskvæði (see the account of the battle of Hafrsfjördr) where the berserkers are also called úlfheðnar, or the History of Saint Olaf, in the Heimskringla.

Berserker Etymology

"Berserker" could mean "bearskin" (from Old Norse ber särk: "bearskin shirt"). There is another theory, which interprets the word as "unprotected" (from Norwegian "berr särk", bare chest).

This interpretation, hardly contested in the past, was defeated from the middle of the nineteenth century. It came back into favor between the two world wars, defended by Erik Noreen, then Hans Kühn.

Since then, the controversy remains open, but the majority of modern authors would rather lean, with Otto Höfler, for the first solution.
According to Régis Boyer, the word berserkr can mean that the bear warrior fought uncovered (without a shirt), but more probably that he had the strength of a bear whose skin he wore as armor (bear shirt).

The meaning "uncovered", "unprotected", could also refer not to the clothing but to a fighting attitude, a warrior who was considered brave and did not wear a shield but used his two hands to handle the sword or axe (in the manner of the "sword players" - "double-solde" of the Renaissance).

The term has been adjectivized in English, where "to go berserk" means in colloquial language "to go berserk", "to lose control of oneself".

Legacy of the Viking Berserkers

We can distinguish three classes of warriors of this type:

The Svinfylkingars - boar-warriors,
The Ulfhednars - wolf-warriors,
The Berserkers - bear-warriors.

In mythology, the berserkers in the broadest sense would be warriors of Odin, and the living equivalent of the Einherjar. Berserkers fight in a state of trance provoked by the animal spirit of the warrior.

This fury would be linked to the person's animal totem. Berserkers are not only warriors, they are also priests of the Nordic gods and particularly of Odin.

Berserkers were supposed to form the bodyguard of the Scandinavian kings in troops of 12 warriors.

Some accounts and archaeological evidence mention a clan named "Clan of the sons of Odin" near Skagen (Denmark) whose men's skeletons were about two meters tall.

The warriors of Odin were gathered in brotherhoods and each aspirant had to pass an initiation of which certain details reached us thanks to the saga of Hrólf Kraki: the aspiring berserker had to ritually kill the image of the bear, then to drink its blood so that the power of the beast was spread in him.

He would then become a berserker and obtain in addition to his fury the gift of Hamrammr, that is to say the power of metamorphosis which allowed him to modify the perception that the others have of him, but also to appear under animal form.

During their fits of rage, the berserkers would let their human mind fade away to let the animal mind take control.

All young warriors had to undergo an important ritual with their seer: the ritual of awakening. This ritual was the very meaning of their sacred anger: either they survived or they died.

If they survived the ritual, they had to wear a kind of tattoo in the shape of a wolf as well as a snake biting its tail and the sign of the clan to which they belonged.

Historical Accounts of Viking Berserkers

The first berserk warriors were the Hari people, but historians know too little about berserkers for lack of material evidence, and in particular whether one was born a berserk.

However, as onomastics and sagas reveal the existence of lines of berserkers, one can lean towards the hereditary character of the phenomenon.

We only know that they dressed in bear, wolf or boar skins, and fought under the influence of Óðinn's fury (berserksgangr), which was said to give them near-invincibility in hand-to-hand combat.

Indeed, the Ynglinga Saga says of them: "His [Óðinn's] men went forth unarmored, enraged as dogs or wolves, biting their shields, strong as bears or bulls, and killing people in one blow, but they were not stung by iron or fire.

They were called berserkers. In practice, their furor made them insensitive to injury and fear.

Vincent Samson, in an exhaustive study, shows that the presentation of berserkers has evolved over time. Forming a close guard around kings in the skaldic poems of the early tenth century, they are surrounded by great prestige throughout the continental Scandinavian world.

Defeating a berserk in single combat is a feat worthy of the greatest heroes. They are shown in a much less positive light in the Icelandic sagas of the late Middle Ages.

According to the sagas, the berserksgangr was accompanied by manifestations such as revolting eyes, howling (sometimes associated with those of wild beasts) or the biting of the edge of the shield, results of furor; the berserk warriors were capable of various feats: increased strength, ability to pass through fire, invulnerability to the blows of their opponents.

Tacitus (Germania, III) already mentioned the practice of bardit or barritus where the warriors "sing" behind their shields (which can remind the bite of the berserkers' shield). Similarly, in the Poetic Edda (Hávamál, 156), Óðinn sings under the shield to make his companions invincible.

In the Icelandic sagas, after the arrival of Christianity, the character of the berserker evolves into that of a brute, often seeking to appropriate by force the goods or even the wife of his adversary.

He becomes the "villain", usually defeated by the hero at the end of the story. This is the interpretation of Régis Boyer, for whom the prestige of these warriors at the time of the sagas should be qualified; indeed, in the Icelandic sagas, the berserkers are often depicted as brutes, who are, precisely, easily defeated by the young hero, more cunning.

The Icelandic sagas represent late views of the Norsemen, since they were written after the Christianization of the island.

The Íslendingabók, or "Book of the Icelanders", claiming to retrace the colonization of Iceland, was thus written by a priest two centuries after the facts related.

It is thus necessary to note that the dogma of this religion, new for these people, could have tainted the prestige enjoyed by the berserkers, with the aim of better undermining the bases of the old beliefs.

An attempt to explain it has been sought in the use of drugs, such as fly agaric or black henbane, or in shamanic rites. Other authors wanted to see a physiological affection.

Another interpretation proposed by a non-medievalist historian was that the berserkers were in fact combatants suffering from psychological problems linked to war, notably what is today designated as post-traumatic stress disorder; or at least in such a perspective, the presence of berserkers in the sagas would be linked to the hypothetical existence, in certain Scandinavian warriors, of such psychoses.

According to Claude Lecouteux hamr, "skin", in Norse mythology, is one of the forms that the "soul" can take, as man can have several. It is precisely the internal form that intimately follows the body envelope.

The manifestation of the hamr is accompanied by an increase in strength, can take on the aspect of an animal, and can overcome distances and obstacles. The change of form, "while the individual falls into lethargy", is "a point which exactly recalls the trance during which the spirit of the shaman visits the other world and enters into communication with the spirits he questions".

Régis Boyer, following Peter Buchholz, attributes shamanic connotations to the phenomenon. This thesis is, on the other hand, refuted by François-Xavier Dillmann and Vincent Samson.

In Scandinavian and Icelandic literature, it is the figures of the wolf and the bear that come up most frequently when there is talk of "travel in form".

When it comes to the wolf, it is the vargúlfr, reminiscent of the lycanthrope, but also the vargynjur, the woman-wolf. When it comes to the bear, it is the mannbjörn, the bear-man.

These two forms are also the representatives of Odin's warriors (berserkir). The Berserk thus takes the form of a bear or a wolf in his furor.