One of most common historical mystifications is that of the Vikings. They are mostly represented as ferocious fighters, lacking any cultural background, the ultimate destroyers raiding everything in their path. True savages. While that is more a product of fantasy based more on literary than historical traditions, there seems to have been some sort of category which may have augmented the myth.
The Vikings were after all a civilization that held the warrior cult in high esteem, and the feats of the great warrior, brave and heroic, is a recurring theme in all sagas. Beyond the exaggerations that equate the Vikings with bloodthirsty monsters, there seems to have existed a very particular category of warriors, one who has common ground with our own modern depictions of these men. They were wild, unchecked and on the rampage, known as the berserkers.
He term may stem from bare-sark, meaning “shirtless”, according to their habit of engaging in combat without wearing any armor. Ynglingasaga speaks of this habit, telling that Odin’s warriors didn’t make any use of chain mails and acted like savage dogs and wolves.
Another hypothesis relates the term to bear-sark, meaning the animal skin they used to wear. Grettir saga names the warriors serving King Harald “wolfskin”, a metaphor also occurring in Vatnsdaela Saga or Hrafnsmal. Berserkers invoke through their behavioral example the king of the gods himself, Odin, who in Adam of Bremen’s opinion stands for rage. His Germanic name, Wotan, is rooted in the Old Norse odur, which in modern German turned into Wut, fury. This fact brings to our attention the terrifying madness of the warrior who actually becomes a symbol for Odin himself, if we also think about the god’s capability of adopting an animal appearance, what the berserkers also craved for.
Berserkers could assimilate the animal feature
