Design Practice 2 // The Berserkers

The Berserkers seemed to be one of the most infamous warriors that the Vikings produced, it is a name that has kept on cropping up when I have been doing this research. They were a certain group of Viking Warriors who were known best for taking hallucinogenics or being extremely drunk before they battled but they wore no armour and set fear into their opponents by fighting with such anger and fury

Research Source By Stephen Harris - http://stephen-harris.hubpages.com/hub/Berserkers-in-Viking-Society

Berserkers in Viking Society

Going Berserk

Berserkers were fearsome Viking warriors who fought friend and foe whilst in a heightened state of uncontrollable fury – a form of madness known as bärsärkar-gång (going berserk).
They are first heard of in the 9^th century poem Raven Song which tells of 'men wearing wolf skins' (Ulfheðnar) who were soldiers in the service of king Harald Fairhair. ¹
There are two disputed origins for the name:

• They wore a bear skin coat – Old Norse ber (bear) and serkr (coat)
• They fought bare chested - berr (bare) and serkr (shirt)

There has been speculation that the mad fury of the berserker was induced by mind-altering magic mushrooms - such as the fly agaric ². Perhaps more plausibly it was brought on by binge-drinking ³.
Supposedly no weapons could harm them. An understandable exagerration - no doubt a berserker in a heightened state of fury would be oblivious of any wounds until the battle was over.
Berserkers worshipped the Scandinavian war-god Odin and like him were reputed to be shape-shifters. Ulfr, a former berserker, was known as Kveld-Ulfr (Evening Wolf) – by day he would grow ever more bad-tempered and at night become a werewolf ⁴.
Berserkers in the throes of their berserkergang could attain the ferocity and strength of a bear, hence the name element ‘Bjorn’ attributed to so many of them.
Once the effects of berserkergang had worn off the berserker would lose all his strength and be vulnerable to capture or assassination.
Though some Viking kings had berserkers in their army they were generally regarded as brutish, stupid and dangerous to know. They had a tendency to wreak havoc upon their own folk: gang-rape and pillage being their favourite recreation.
It was their unfair exploitation of the practice of hólmganga that led to their downfall.
The upper classes of the day were not amused that a fit, young, fearless berserker could challenge them to a duel to which they must respond in person, or with a champion and, after an inevitable defeat, watch said young berserker legally carry away one’s wealth, wife, daughters and nubile maidservants.
In 1015 King Erik of Norway outlawed the berserkers.

Beorn

Beorn is the Old English word for bear and is related to the Swedish Björn and Norwegian Bjørn. These words evolved into meaning ‘man’, ‘freeman’, ‘nobleman’ and finally ‘baron’.
In JRR Tolkein’s Hobbit Beorn was a “skin-shifter” who could take on the appearance of a black bear.
The extinct Cretaceous tardigrade Beorn leggi was named after Tolkein’s Beorn and its discoverer William Legg. Tardigrades are minute aquatic creatures known as ‘water-bears’.