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. 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. This ritual was the very meaning of their sacred anger: either they survived or they died. 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.ĭuring their fits of rage, the berserkers would let their human mind fade away to let the animal mind take control.Īll young warriors had to undergo an important ritual with their seer: the ritual of awakening. ![]() 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. 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. Berserkers are not only warriors, they are also priests of the Nordic gods and particularly of Odin.īerserkers were supposed to form the bodyguard of the Scandinavian kings in troops of 12 warriors. This fury would be linked to the person's animal totem. Berserkers fight in a state of trance provoked by the animal spirit of the warrior. In mythology, the berserkers in the broadest sense would be warriors of Odin, and the living equivalent of the Einherjar. We can distinguish three classes of warriors of this type: The term has been adjectivized in English, where "to go berserk" means in colloquial language "to go berserk", "to lose control of oneself". ![]() 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). Since then, the controversy remains open, but the majority of modern authors would rather lean, with Otto Höfler, for the first solution.Īccording 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). It came back into favor between the two world wars, defended by Erik Noreen, then Hans Kühn. This interpretation, hardly contested in the past, was defeated from the middle of the nineteenth century. There is another theory, which interprets the word as "unprotected" (from Norwegian "berr särk", bare chest). "Berserker" could mean "bearskin" (from Old Norse ber särk: "bearskin shirt"). ![]() ![]() 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.Īlthough 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.
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