Did Viking Berserker Warriors Really Exist?

Meet the Berserkers, the Bravest of Viking Warriors
In primary sources, the berserkers were warriors who fought in a trance-like fury, and from this later gave rise to the English word “berserk.”
The name berserk probably means “bear shirt” (comparable in Middle English to the word “serk,” meaning “shirt”). They were warriors who traditionally went into battle unarmored and dressed in the skins of bears or wolves.

Some scholars argue that the origins of the berserkers can be found in the Roman period, such as in the Germanic social structures described by the Roman historian Tacitus, or in Scene 36 of Trajan’s Column in Rome, which depicts tribal warriors wearing bear or wolf hoods.

One of the earliest texts describing the berserkers is the Hrafnsmál, a fragmentary 9th-century “skaldic” poem written by the Norwegian Þorbjörn Hornklofi:

They [the ships] were loaded with men and white shields, Western spears and Frankish swords. The berserkers were howling; the battle was already underway for them; wolfskins [berserks] howling and brandishing their iron spears.

They are called wolfskins, who carry bloody shields in battle; they redden their spears when they go to war; there [at Haraldr’s court] they sit together. There, I believe, he, the sovereign, wise in understanding, trusts only men of courage, those who bear a shield.

“Go berserk” was “hamask”, which translates as “shape-shifting”, in this case, as in the sense of “going into a state of wild rage”, or literally changing shape into a bear. In the sagas they are portrayed as indestructible, immune to most evils and possessing superhuman strength. Vikings Berserkers

Berserker Warriors

History of Berserkers

Mythology of Berserkers

Berserkers in Viking Culture

Berserker Rituals

Berserkers and Viking Battles

Berserker Legends

Berserkers and Superhuman Strength

Berserkers and Battle Fury
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