Berserker
The scenes show his Roman soldiers plus auxiliaries and allies from Rome's border regions, including tribal warriors from both sides of the Rhine.
This is the only potential record of Germanic bear-warriors and wolf-warriors fighting together until 872 AD, with Thórbiörn Hornklofi's description of the battle of Hafrsfjord, when they fought together for King Harald Fairhair of Norway.
As part of its decoration, the first horn, the larger of the two, depicts two animal headed men facing each other, armed with what appears to be a sickle and a wood-splitting axe.
[8][9] In 1887, the graves of two 7th century Alemanni men were found during construction work in the immediate vicinity of the St. Gallus Church in the Gutenstein district of the city of Sigmaringen, Germany.
One tale within tells the story of Bödvar Bjarki, a berserker who is able to shapeshift into a bear and uses this ability to fight for king Hrólfr Kraki.
[27] Swine played a central role in Germanic paganism, featuring in both mythology and religious practice, particularly in association with the Vanir, Freyr and Freyja.
It has been proposed that similar to berserkers, warriors could ritually transform into boars so as to gain strength, bravery and protection in battle.
[30] This image would change as time passed and sagas would begin to describe berserkers as boasters rather than heroes, and as ravenous men who loot, plunder, and kill indiscriminately.
[32] The earliest surviving reference to the term "berserker" is in Haraldskvæði, a skaldic poem composed by Thórbiörn Hornklofi in the late 9th century in honor of King Harald Fairhair, as ulfheðnar ("men clad in wolf skins").
[33] The Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) wrote the following description of berserkers in his Ynglinga saga: His (Odin's) men rushed forwards without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild oxen, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon them.
[citation needed] Other Scandinavian kings used berserkers as part of their army of hirdmen and sometimes ranked them as equivalent to a royal bodyguard.
The sources frequently state that neither edged weapons nor fire affected the berserks, although they were not immune to clubs or other blunt instruments.
When Hardbeen heard this, a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the hearts of six of his champions.
Then with the remaining band of his champions he attacked Halfdan, who crushed him with a hammer of wondrous size, so that he lost both victory and life; paying the penalty both to Halfdan, whom he had challenged, and to the kings whose offspring he had violently ravished...[35]Similarly, Hrolf Kraki's champions refuse to retreat "from fire or iron".
Another frequent motif refers to berserkers blunting their enemy's blades with spells or a glance from their evil eyes.
[37] Some scholars propose that certain examples of berserker rage had been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as hallucinogenic mushrooms,[37][38][39] massive amounts of alcohol,[40] or a mixture only known as 'butotens.
'[41] This is much debated[42] but the theory is further supported by the discovery of seeds belonging to black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) in a Viking grave that was unearthed near Fyrkat, Denmark in 1977.
[44] Other explanations for the berserker's madness that have been put forward include self-induced hysteria, epilepsy, or mental illness, among other causes.
[46] Jonathan Shay makes an explicit connection between the berserker rage of soldiers and the hyperarousal of posttraumatic stress disorder.
[47] In Achilles in Vietnam, he writes: If a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology and permanent hyperarousal to his physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans.
My clinical experience with Vietnam combat veterans prompts me to place the berserk state at the heart of their most severe psychological and psychophysiological injuries.
