In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers (Old Norse: berserkir) were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the … See more

It is proposed by some authors that the northern warrior tradition originated from hunting magic. Three main animal cults appear to have developed: the cult of the bear, the wolf, and the wild boar.
Germani mercenaries in the Roman army
The See more

Berserkers appear prominently in a multitude of other sagas and poems. Many earlier sagas portrayed berserkers as bodyguards, elite soldiers, and champions of kings. This image would change as time passed and sagas would begin to describe … See more

The Old Norse form of the word was berserk (plural berserkir). It likely means "bear-shirt" (compare the Middle English word 'serk', meaning 'shirt'), "someone who wears a See more

Berserkers – bear warriors
It is proposed by some authors that the berserkers drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, which was once … See more

Scholar Hilda Ellis-Davidson draws a parallel between berserkers and the mention by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (CE … See more

• J.R.R. Tolkien draws heavily on Norse mythology in his Middle Earth tales, including The Hobbit. There, the berserker Beorn can transfigure into a massive bear, dangerous to both friend and foe.
• In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, berserkers appear as humans … See more