Gone Medieval - The Berserkers

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

To go berserk, meaning out of control with anger or excitement: the phrase originates from stories of the Berserkers, but what do we really know about them? Dangerous to friend or foe, the Berserkers are said to have fought feuds in the nude or even to have taken magic mushrooms in battle, but how much of this is true? Joined by Dr. Roderick Dale, a specialist in Old Norse and Viking Studies, we debunk the myths and legends, deciphering the facts from fiction.. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman and one of the things we'll be doing in this podcast is look at some of the very familiar myths and legends about the Middle Ages and there's an awful lot of them trying to disentangle the fact from the fiction. And you might be familiar with the term go berserk, meaning to erupt in a furious rage or go wild or become crazy with anger. And that term derives from the berserkers who may be less familiar to some of you,

but you may know them as a select group of Viking warriors renowned for their strength and ferocity in battle, who would enter the battlefield with a fierce cry, maybe dressed in bare skins, completely out of control perhaps, but very effective. But were these berserkers actually real? Were they warriors that you could expect to meet in battle during the Viking Age, howling and biting their shields? Or were there something else entirely, if they even existed at all? To find out about this, today I've invited the ultimate expert on berserkers, Dr. Roderick Dale, who has dedicated quite a significant part of his life to separating their facts from the fiction in this topic. Roderick did his PhD on the subject at the University of Nottingham,

and now works at the University of Stavanger in Norway. So welcome to Gone Medieval Roderick. So I think we're going to just launch straight into it. And I wanted to start with asking you a little bit more about this sort of popular perception of the berserkers. And when you talk to people about it and what you study, what sort of thing do they have in mind? What sort of things have they learnt about the berserkers?

People have picked up a lot about berserkers. I generally use the old Norse term because the modern English term berserker has quite a specific meaning, which, as you mentioned in the introduction, implies that there were people who went absolutely mad in battle, were totally uncontrollable, and basically were dangerous to both friend and foe. A lot of people will have learnt about this from fiction, in the past 40-odd years, from role-playing games, where you can be a berserker barbarian in Dungeons and Dragons or something similar. It was, in fact, one of the early...

The earliest character classes to be created outside the Dungeons and Dragons Rule Books was the berserker. And what people generally think is one of two things. Either they were warriors, uncontrollable warriors who wore bearskins, or they were uncontrollable warriors who threw all their clothes and armour off and fought in the nude in battle. These are, however, much later constructions of what a berserker identity would be. That's basically what people know about them. Okay, so that's quite an attractive idea, though, isn't it? It's quite a sort of exciting, attractive idea,

and it fits, I think, quite well with a lot of people's perceptions of the Viking Age. But where does this come from them? What's the kind of origins of those stories of the berserkers? The original origin and the earliest stories we have about them is the Old Norse literature that was written down mostly in Iceland in the 13th and 14th centuries. The legendary sagas look at the time around the migration period following the fall of Rome and they describe events that supposedly happened back then. Then there's the Icelandinger Serger, the sagas of the Icelanders, which are,

record the settlement period through to around the year 1000-ish, a little bit afterwards. And there are also some contemporary sagas recording the events of the 13th century. And if anybody has read any of these sagas just in passing, it is most likely they will have read the sagas of the Icelanders. Those are the ones of the most popular stories. It's about people like burnt Njall, who got burnt in his house. with his wife in a feud in Iceland, or about Ayl Skotlgrimson, the famous Icelandic poet, who's often said to be a berserker in later scholarship and popular culture,

and who was very much at odds with Eric Bloodax, the famous Viking king, and his wife. So those are the stories that people know them from. And some of those are quite graphic and they're quite sort of violent, aren't they? So that's where you get some of these quite attractive events, I guess, that people cling on to. People have read these sagas and they quite often focus on the violence in them, the Holmgang, the jewels, which is where in the sagas of the Icelanders you mostly see Basakir. And it's a shame really because the sagas have so much to do with law and culture and families and they are descriptions

are reads like these are living people. These are people we could be actually living next door to just a bit grumpier. Excellent. I like that idea. But so in terms of the berserkers then, let's just go back to the name or the berserker. What does that actually come from? Now we talked about the bearskins earlier on.

Can you explain the origin of the name? The modern English berserca comes from Old Norse Berserkr, which is a compound word consisting of two elements bare, which is disputed and can mean either bear, i.e. naked, or bear a bear. And the second half of the word serk means a shirt, but it can also mean a coat of mail, so a type of armour. So they are either bear-roof shirt or they are wearing a bear-skin shirt. And bear of shark doesn't actually mean they fought naked. There is absolutely nothing in Old Norse literature that talks about them actually fighting naked.

I'm going to make this point quite firmly right now. We do get episodes of people throwing their armour off. Snoddy Sturtleson, the Icelandic historian from the 13th century, loves this motif. And it's always a hot day, so they take their armour off. and every time they take their armour off in his history of the Norwegian kings, they die. But also, with these stories, they are never about Berserkir themselves. It's always kings, so Harold Hadrada takes his armour off at the Battle of Stamford Bridge,

because it's too hot. The other thing with the name Bersatker is it's often connected with the old Norse word Ulfheithin, which in the plural is Ulfhednar, and people will have heard. of it as the Ulfhednar in English, the Wolfskins, warriors who supposedly wore wolfskins. And in Old Norse literature, the two words are connected. We see in Vastela Saga, the saga of the people of Valdstale in Iceland, that there is a line which actually says, those berserks who were called wolfskins, they may have been a subgroup, or this may have just been a later rationalisation, of the two, but the connection is made very strongly, and it's actually made very early as well,

because in the poem Harold Skwai The poem about Harold Fairhair, which is also known as the Raven's poem, it actually says in two of the verses, in one of the verses, the Raven asks about the equipment of the Besserkir. and the Valkyrie replies, those men are called wolf skins, those men are called Ulfethner, and they carry bloody shields into battle, and they bloody spears.

And so the link is made early, and the thing about this poem is that although it's only recorded from the 13th century, it's written down round about that time, because of the way Old Norse poetry works, We're fairly confident that it was actually composed sometime around 900, shortly after the Battle of Haftesfjord, which is about four kilometres to the west of where I'm sitting right now.

Right, excellent. So this actually shows that not all the sources are later in medieval period, but actually we do have references to Berserkis from the Viking Age itself. And what about other sources? Because are there not some, if we go back to this, idea of the bear skins, are there not also some pictures and representations of people wearing some kind of bear costume or headdress in the archaeological record or in their sort of pictorial record? Bears are more problematic. From the migration period through to the very

beginning of the Viking Age, we find images of figures wearing wolf skins and they appear to be wearing whole wolf skin so that you can't see their face, and they just appear to have like a wolf's head. And these have often been connected to Baserkir, because of the literary connection I mentioned. So it's difficult to comment specifically on them and say, these absolutely are Berserkir, but they are used a lot as evidence, and they do suggest that there were people wearing animal skins in this fashion. The closest we get to anything bear-like is the runestone, Kelbu 56, which has a depiction of a person with a slightly bear-like head, but with droopy ears on it, so they could be a basset hound. or a fresco in the Hagia Sophia in Kiev, which is called the Fight of the Geysers,

and appears to depict a man with his top half uncovered, except wearing a kind of bearish sort of mask in an apparent dual pose, opposing a man with sword and shield. From context, it's an entertainment, probably. But these are the kinds of things we're looking at, and that then gets us to felt masks that were found at Heatherbeau in Denmark, where we have absolutely no idea how they were actually used, and it would be too speculative to say, this is what Berserskaya did. But certainly in terms of appearing in an animal form, these masks suggest that there is some kind of guising, some kind of mummer. going on that could be related to Berserkir, even if those specifically were not part of that. Okay, so we have some imagery then of these animal headdresses or some sort of dressing up as

animals, so we have some evidence of the Berserkis that is contemporary, but a lot of it is much later, and we'll get back to that again in a moment. But I just want to just mention one other quite common belief, which you may well now ruin for us. It's this idea that the sort of anger and rage came from drugs and especially from magic mushrooms that this sort was used to whip the berserkers into a mad range before battle. How about that? Where did that idea come from? And is there any truth in that at all? There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the use of magic mushrooms of any description in Scandinavia in the Viking Age to make people go berserk in battle.

Ah, and so where on earth has that come from them? Because that is a very common belief. It is. It's actually, it's the Swedish theologian, Samuel Erdmann in 1784, suggested, based on his knowledge of Siberian shamanism, that they used Amanita muscaria, the flyerac mushroom, which is that famous red and white topped one that everybody can see, everybody has seen and everybody knows, to actually go beserk. And then it was further popularised in 1956 when Howard Fabin performed experiments on prisoners in Ohio State Penitentiary, extracting what he thought was the active ingredient, Buffett Tenin, and feeding it to these prisoners,

and monitoring what actually happened. And he concluded that it matched the symptoms that he understood from Old Norfolk. literature. Problem there is that his study really only highlights what he doesn't know about all Norse literature. It's okay. So these really are very much, very, well, to us at least modern, although a few people would not agree that a few years ago was modern, but that these were ideas that came about really quite recently, but we have no evidence for it. Catastrophic warfare, bloody revolutions and violent ideological battles. I'm James Rogers and over on the Warfare podcast,

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Join us on the front line of military history. Obviously, let's get back to the facts and the evidence, because you've gone through the literature. So if they aren't those mad and ferocious drug-fueled warriors that we might think or want them to be, who were they really? And what does the literature say? Although there's no evidence of the use of magic mushrooms, and similarly no evidence of the use of henbane, which was suggested in 2019 by an ethnobotanist, or of any of the other causes of going berserk that have been suggested since Stefan Stephanus in 1644 decided that it was demonic possession because Odin was a black magician who was possessing men, we'd really be. really need to look at the Old Norse literature and try and get inside the heads of the audience and understand what they understood from it. Yeah, that's quite an important point, isn't it?

The fact that these, I mean, they're obviously not written for us, but they were written in the 13th and 14th century for an audience that were expecting and were familiar with some of these concepts. Yes, this is a problem actually we have with the Old Norse literature, is that there will be assumed knowledge in there. that we don't have. We don't have the keys to everything that's in there, but we can look at it and try and look at the cultural context within which it was written, and we can look at what kind of things we actually know would have been part of the experience of the people hearing these

sagas, and therefore what might they have understood by episodes featuring Berserkir, or mention of the word Berserk, but also, and something that hasn't really been done much, is trying to understand what the word actually means, because we've discussed the etymology before, but etymology is just a starting point. It isn't the meaning of the word. So trying to understand what they understood from Old Norse literature has got to be the first step in projecting a meaning backwards into the Viking Age. I know this is a bit of a, a, a tricky one for you to just summarize quite quickly. But if I can ask you, what do you think would be the main sort of takeaway message?

So what would somebody living in 13th century or 14th century Iceland understand when they heard these stories about the berserkers? What I concluded from actually reading through these episodes was that Berserkir were linked very closely to jueling. The sagas of the Icelanders feature many dueling episodes where a Berserk will come along and challenge a poor father. farmer for to a jewel with the winner taking the farmer's farm and the farmer's wife and the farmer's daughter it is understood that the farmer will be weak and unable to underst unable to fight the baserker and win at which point the saga hero steps in and says i'll be your champion in this jewel and fights the jewel and kills the baserker and everybody's happy and frequently the young champion gains a sword from this, gains recognition,

and very occasionally actually takes a wife as a result. So there's the dueling episodes. Then there's also the episodes where you get Berserkir as members of a king's bodyguard. The most famous one is in Rolfsaga, the saga of King Rolf Krakke, where the saga presents his champions and his Berserkir as two groups of 12 people opposed to each other and who are slightly at odds, but they are his closest bodyguards. Interestingly, Snorri Sturtleson, when describing these characters, actually describes the champions from Rolfs Saga as Berserkir 2, which is a clue to what the word means, I think. The other area that's particularly crucial for understanding what Berserkr means is the Schivalricks where we find Christian Berserkir, such as Antonius, who was Jesus' Berserk.

It says in the saga, And Jesus Christ er, glendiagi Holmgangu since Berserk's, but Jesus Christ did not forget his Berserk's homegang. And there's also Yosephat, who is also Jocifat, who is. God's young Berserk. So God had a Berserk too. And we find much the same in Carla-Magnos saga, the saga of Shalomang, where the hero Roland says to Bishop Turpin as he's dying, you've been a great Berserk against the heathen men. Okay. So there's quite an important religious element to this then and the sort of pagans against the Christians coming in here as well. There is, there is,

but the Berset can be both Christian and pagan. So we're seeing Christian Bersaf get here. And the key elements for me is when in the saga of Yvain, which is the retelling of Yvain the knight of the lion, the two people whom Yvain is about to attack say, we don't want your lion fighting as your Bersak. And this is a literal translation from Old French. in Champion meaning champion. And this connection between jewels being a king's bodyguard and these

Christian Berserk makes it quite clear that for the medieval audience Berserk could mean champion and was very much linked to fighting these jewels and being a bodyguard. Right. So they were working for somebody in a very particular capacity and for a very good reason. So that's a very interesting point. Yes. And I think that given that in the poem about Harold Fairhair that I mentioned earlier, that dates from the Viking Age, when it mentions his Berserkir, they are his warriors who are fighting in that capacity. It seems quite clear that from the poem, insofar as anything's clear in poetry, that that's what they're actually doing. So I think it's perfectly reasonable to project a meaning of champion back to the Viking age and that is the core of the word and then to that can

be accreted pagan rituals the connection to the god Odin that Snorri Stuttlinson makes and various other social functions so we seem to have something here that that clearly has a defined feature in society and in particular in the sort of slightly military combative contexts that is existent in the Viking Age and then it continues and perhaps it then transforms its meaning through when obviously people change from paganism and a convert to Christianity

and it takes on a whole new meaning but perhaps doing the same sort of role but a different context. Would that sound right? Yes. In the Viking Age if you think about Bersethyar as King's bodyguards who may have been thought to have a special connection to the god

that gives victory in battle and therefore might have led rituals that connect to that God because they're thought to have that connection, and then taking that forward to the medieval period where the pagan connections are lost to some extent, although still remembered in part in the saga literature, but also become transmuted into the possibility of them being Christian bodyguards, defenders of the faith, the sort of the knight of Christ, then you have social roles for them that fit the culture of the time, but absolutely do not fit the popular conceptions that have built up since then. And it's more reasonable to project a medieval meaning back to the Viking

Age than it is to think that the medieval meaning suddenly changed. And then we returned to a more Viking Age meaning later. Yeah, so perhaps that's reflecting more what our conceptions are at the Viking Age, which quite often are that sort of quite violent and very sort of out of control rage that perhaps fits more with our perception than it did with any previous times. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I really do think that when people are imagining the besetiae of popular culture, it's projecting the present into the past and to some extent it ties into the noble savage

trope the person free untrammeled from the hindrances of civilization the Conan the barbarian archetype that is very popular in popular culture but you really wouldn't want to invite them round for dinner okay now that's that's a really different perspective i think on the berserkers than what most people really have in mind. But the one thing we haven't talked about yet is that idea of the howling and the biting of shields, which, again, is something that a lot of people have heard about. Can you just explain if there's anything to that at all?

The howling and the biting of shields is connected to what in Old Norse is known as Berserk Skanger. It's usually translated as going berserk, but that completely ignores the etymology of the word, which consists of the old Norse word Berser, A Berserk and Gungar meaning to go, but Gungar is always used of physical movement. It's not used in that transferred sense that we use it in English when we would say go berserk. So it's the movement of the Berserk.

And it features in the sagas frequently at the start of the dueling episodes. I can't recall any examples from Old Norsearch. examples from Old Norse literature that have Berserserskanger at the start of an actual mast battle. So that sort of suggests it's to do with whatever rituals are associated with Holmgang. And when we actually read these episodes, it's very easy to read them quickly and go, oh, he's howling, he's biting his shield. Oh, he's gone berserk in battle. But actually, if you read it as a narrative,

then you realise there are actual narrative pauses between the Berser and the actual fight. The example I always use is Ayls saga, where he fights the Berserk, Jot the Pale. And Yot performs Bessarskanger. Ayl says some poems that are quite scurrilous about Yot basically slamming him. So Liot then says, all right, you, big lad, I'll fight you instead.

You're going to be more of a challenge anyway. But he's not ready for the duel yet, despite having performed Bess Skaangra at the start of this. So there's another narrative pause while Egel makes more scurrilous poetry about Lyot. Then they fight. Then Liot wants a rest. Then there's a bit more poetry about how Liotz a bit rubbish. And then they finish the fight and Liott dies. from a narrative perspective this is not somebody going berserk

it suggests that what lyote is doing may be some kind of ritual at the start of Holmgang because Holmgang was circumscribed by rules and it's likely that the Berserk performed his ritual, his Berserkangar beforehand and I always think of it as culturally similar to a Maori Haka like the All Blacks perform before a rugby match. It boosts your courage.

It intimidates the other side. And in Pagan Scandinavia, it may have been designed to get the god of victory in jewels on your side. That's a really, really interesting, a very important point, I think, because if you think of these people going into battle, going into a situation where many of them may well lose their lives, in a duel or in a battle type situation, that fits in quite nicely, I think, with what they might need both the protection from a deity, but also to sort of get them in the right atmosphere.

Yeah, and it doesn't require mushrooms, it doesn't require alcohol, it doesn't require genetic abnormalities or any of the rest of that. It's a cultural phenomenon. It's a social phenomenon and that is how it reads in Old Norse literature. If we had descriptions from the period, it would be very interesting to see how they were, but sadly we don't. But I think that's a brilliant summary actually. And I think that although we may well now have disappointed quite a lot of people in this podcast, those who were expecting to have those myths and stereotypes confirm, but actually I think that that's adding a much more interesting and significant layer that we have these very significant cultural characters that perform roles that were important both in battle

and in society at large. So we're going to leave it there for today. Thank you so much, Roderick, for joining me and dispelling some of these myths. Thank you for having me. And thank you to all our listeners out there. This has been Going Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman, and we'll be back with another episode next week. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to Going Medieval by History Hit. and tell all your friends and your family to subscribe as well and leave us a review if you want to and we will see you again soon