But really, who were the berserkers? They were not merely stories made up to frighten children, because there were laws passed in medieval Christianized Iceland against them. You don’t enact laws against men who are only the stuff of stories.
“His men went without mailcoats or shields and were as frantic as dogs or wolves; they bit their shields and were as strong as bears or boars; they slew men but neither fire nor iron hurt them. This is known as ‘running berserk’” Ynglinga Saga
Theories abound, including the abuse of alcohol and Amanita muscaria or fly agaric mushroom. Alcohol has a very weak connection. First off, a man who is drunk enough to fly into a blind rage would be almost worse than useless in battle. His efforts would be uncoordinated and he certainly would not be unaffected by fire or iron as the saga suggests. Alcohol thins the blood. They are far more likely to bleed out from the horrific wounds inflicted in medieval battle.
A case has been made for the fly agaric mushroom. Despite the fact that this red fungus, speckled with white shows up in almost every European fairy tale picture book you ever read as a child, it grew in Europe in only isolated areas. It certainly does not grow in Iceland where there is much mention of the berserkers. Furthermore, the effects of the mushroom, unless used very carefully, are more likely to produce real illness than the desired level of hallucination in those who ingest it. The potency of the mushroom is affected by many things: the time of the year it is harvested, where it has been harvested and how it is collected. There is not enough uniformity to produce the desired outcome.
Some have suggested the use of the bog myrtle, a plant frequently used in place of hops for ale in Scandinavia. However there is little evidence to support this being the medium by which certain Norsemen went berserk. Many more men would have gone berserk, women as well and that does not seem to be the case from what we read in the sagas.
Men such as Kvedulf (Evening Wolf) who left to be alone in the evening away from his family to deal with his berserker tendencies, may have found it difficult to live in organized society and often found themselves exiled from it.
One of the things that set the berserkers apart is that though they had an incredible ability to fight during the gangr or berserker rage which lasted at best only thirty to forty minutes. After that, they became weak and unable to fight. This fits with IED in which shares much with those who self identify as berserkers. The altered awareness, hearing voices and echos, increased strength, duration of outbursts, tingling sensation, tension and mood changed prior to an outburst, violent reactions to stressors and a dissociative state are some of the symptoms of IED. Much of this sounds like Dr. Shay’s list comparing the berserker behavior to that of Vietnam vets with PTSD.
Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist makes the case for the hyperarousal of post traumatic stress disorder in his book Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. It is true that as long as soldiers have gone into battle and witnessed the horrors of war, there have been those affected with PTSD, but this is not a strong enough connection to apply to all those who were affected with the berserker rage. He does make a convincing argument in his list of berserker-like characteristics: “…beastlike; godlike; socially disconnected; crazy, mad, insane; enraged; cruel without restraint or discrimination; insatiable, devoid of fear, inattentive to own safety; distractable, indiscriminate; reckless, feeling invulnerable; exalted, intoxicated, frenzied; cold, indifferent; insensible to pain; and suspicious of friends.”
It sounds like a laundry list for the berserker distinguishing features if I ever heard one. But it does not take into consideration that the sagas mentioned that the berserkers run in families, which would indicate a genetic component, something that PTSD would not be a result of. It is possible however that PTSD aggravates an already present condition. I reference the berserker Egil Skallagrimson of the
Icelandic Egil’s Saga whose father Skallagrim was a berserker and the son of Kveldulf Bjalfson or Evening Wolf, also a berserker. This very much indicates the condition was genetic and places some weight on its being something like IED which we have today.
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that 11% to 20% of military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are afflicted with the condition. How much this percentage would change for those who had experienced medieval combat can only remain speculation.
The most convincing argument I have yet seen is that it was a genetic condition that we still have today: Intermittent Militant Disorder or Intermittent Explosive Disorder, otherwise IED. However, far from being viewed as mentally ill, these men would have been perceived as being gifted by the god Odin. They were considered sons of Odin and both feared and respected. As elite warriors, they were both at the top of society and also cast out of it. There is evidence that such a “disorder” far from being seen as debilitating, opened up neural pathways in the mind not available to others not born to it. And while these natural abilities may have been enhanced by such psychoactive substances such as henbane or hempr (cannabis), much of what they did was probably innate.
The subject of the berserker is an extensive one and more than can not be covered in the scope of a blog post.
Sources:
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay M.D. Ph.D
There is little written scientifically on the modern berserker. There is however an excellent book written by Wayland Skallagrimson Putting on the Wolf Skin: The Berserker and Other Forms of Somafera.
See also his website: http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/somafera/