What were berserkers?

[Bohemond]

I wrote an article in Slingshot about 30 years ago saying that the berserker is a literary figure and not an historical one. I like the cited doctorate's suggestion of posturing; I am also impressed that the author managed to find enough information for a PhD.

[Anton]

Has any society ever legislated against literary figures?  I can see the attraction but I can't think of an example.

[Andreas Johansson]

Has any society ever legislated against literary figures?  I can see the attraction but I can't think of an example.

Well, there are plenty of laws concerning witches and the like, but I guess those are folkloric rather than literary.

[Erpingham]

The imitation, conscious or unconscious, of literary figures is not exactly uncommon.  Alexander the Great styled himself on Achilles, medieval knights were influenced by Arthurian heroes, cowboys in the Old West tried to live up to fictionalised versions of their lives published back East.  So, laws to stop people behaving like berserkers they heard about reciting tales in the Hall on winter nights isn't that far fetched.

[Andreas Johansson]

The imitation, conscious or unconscious, of literary figures is not exactly uncommon.  Alexander the Great styled himself on Achilles, medieval knights were influenced by Arthurian heroes, cowboys in the Old West tried to live up to fictionalised versions of their lives published back East.  So, laws to stop people behaving like berserkers they heard about reciting tales in the Hall on winter nights isn't that far fetched.

But if people did make sufficient nuisances of themselves by imitating literary berserkers to motive laws against, the berserker is not a purely literary figure, even if originally literary.

(Now, law-givers might have made laws against the mere possibility of such imitation, but it's probably a fair generalization that laws are made to prevent activities that are at least thought to be actually occurring. Anti-witchcraft laws are made by, or for the benefit of, people who believe in witches.)

[Erpingham]

The imitation, conscious or unconscious, of literary figures is not exactly uncommon.  Alexander the Great styled himself on Achilles, medieval knights were influenced by Arthurian heroes, cowboys in the Old West tried to live up to fictionalised versions of their lives published back East.  So, laws to stop people behaving like berserkers they heard about reciting tales in the Hall on winter nights isn't that far fetched.

But if people did make sufficient nuisances of themselves by imitating literary berserkers to motive laws against, the berserker is not a purely literary figure, even if originally literary.

I wouldn't argue they were purely literary.  But I would say they had a literary component which became stronger as their original pagan significance became lost or obscured.

[Patrick Waterson]

When we talk of a literary figure or component, are we assuming a literate society?

[Nick Harbud]

Literature does not need to be written down.  I mean the Iliad was not put to papyrus until several centuries after the Trojan War.

[Prufrock]

Literature does not need to be written down.  I mean the Iliad was not put to papyrus until several centuries after the Trojan War.

Without wanting to be picky (he says while being picky!), it being written down is an essential definition of literature. An oral tradition may become literature once it's been written down, but until then it would be considered performance poetry, minstrelsy, song, etc.

[Andreas Johansson]

I'm afraid that "oral literature" is nevertheless a well-established term for more or less fixed compositions (epics, laws, etc.) that are being handed down orally.

[Prufrock]

I'm afraid that "oral literature" is nevertheless a well-established term for more or less fixed compositions (epics, laws, etc.) that are being handed down orally.

Thanks Andreas - I can live with that!

[Patrick Waterson]

Literature does not need to be written down.

Although 'literary' has that implication; in any event, are we being asked to believe that pursuant to the Christianising of Vikings the whole berserker thing was invented by reactionary skalds and adopted by gullible youths?  I think Andreas' point that if it was legislated against there was enough substance to it to make it a reality is a valid one.

I mean the Iliad was not put to papyrus until several centuries after the Trojan War.

There we are likely to differ, given that it would have been composed in the 8th century BC and 'fixed' on a written medium in the 7th, but that is another topic.

[Erpingham]

When we talk of a literary figure or component, are we assuming a literate society?

The Vikings were indeed literate, as can be seen by all the runestones they left scattered about.  However, I would place their early "literature" in the "oral literature" category suggested by Andreas.

Perhaps the most useful thing the thesis does is separate out phases of evidence for berserkers.  They get covered in plenty of books and we see conflations of pre-Viking art, Viking era poetry and medieval literature to explain them.  Separate these out to form a rough timeline and an evolving religious/social category seems plausible, beginning with a cultic society, moving to a respected warrior class and fading to poseurs, thugs and bullies seen in literature.

[Anton]

The legislators were part of the new Christian order and the Berserkers part of the old so a previous pagan practice is outlawed.  Whatever Berserkers were, and I think we have come to some understanding of that, they were real enough to be legislated against.

Berserker behavior might always have been atrocious or possibly written accounts might have shared the same motivation of the legislators to suppress the practice.

[aligern]

I'm with Spiedel that the berserker is a continuation of an Indo European tradition which manifests itself in such things a fighting naked , going and living in the woods as an age cohort of young men , practising a bit of rape and robbery, wearing wolf and bearskins, a bit of drug taking  and licensed criminality, maybe some head hunting. This sort of activity might well have been practised in part by the comitatenses of kings and nobles.  It makes a lot of sense in an environment which has a cattle based economy, or at least cattle based wealth, an heroic ethos a la Cuchulainn and has quite a bit of empty space.  It makes less sense when agriculture spreads out, peopke are tied to the land, kings and nobles are expected to deliver peace and security and warfare becomes regularised.
The Quadi in the IVth century frustrated the Roman emperor because they could not sign a peace that would guarantee that their young men would not raid. On Trajan's column groups of German Symmachoi are shown with bare chests and clubs, others with wolf and bear skin headdresses, others with openwork helmets. There is a substructure to their military activity that we miss because our witnesses are Roman and look for structures they understand except when they choose to mimic the father of history and give an anecdote about the otherness of these peoples. Such an example might well be the Heruls whom Procopius describes as having very friendly relations with their horses, not wearing armour abd freeing their slaves if such slaves fought heroically, shieldless for them. ( They would also get a shield for next time). The difference between the tough Heruls and other Germans Zprocopius knew is that the Heruls were still pagans, not softened by adopting a form of Christianity, lije Goths, Vandals and Franks.
In a world in which the Gods moved amongst us on earth, extravagant oaths were sought and an heroic death was celebrated the berserkers were no oddity, so I rather believe in them.
Roy