Wearing the wolf skin: psychiatry and the phenomenon of the berserker in medieval Scandinavia

Introducing the berserker

His own men went to battle without coats of mail and acted like mad dogs or wolves. They bit their shields and were as strong as bears or bulls. They killed people, and neither fire nor iron affected them. This is called berserker rage. (Sturluson, 1225, trans. Hollander, 1964: 10) ¹

The concept of ‘going berserk’ (Old Norse [ON], berserkergangr, ‘berserk fury’) was seemingly well understood among the cultures of medieval Scandinavia but, to the modern reader, few figures in Old Norse literature are as enigmatic as the berserkr. The name persists in our daily speech, hinting at unspoken furies lurking at the limits of our equanimity (so that we might ‘go berserk’ if our delayed train does not arrive soon), but we rarely realize the etymology of the word. The berserkr (ON, s.; pl. berserkir, ‘berserker(s)’) was a frenzied warrior, fearsome and fearless in equal measure. The origin of the word is perhaps ambiguous, deriving either from the tendency of fighting without armour (ON, berr, ‘bare’ and -serkr, ‘shirt’) or else from the custom of wearing bear-skins into battle (ON, berr, beri, ‘bear’). As a group or caste, it seems probable that they were cognate with the Old Germanic Wolfhetan, at least in their earlier incarnation, and the Old Norse term úlfhéðnar (ON, ‘wolf-coat’) appears at times to be used interchangeably (Tuczay, 2015: 65). The skaldic poet Þorbjorn Hornklofi, recounting the role of the berserkir during the ninth-century battle of Hafrsfjord (in present-day Norway), describes King Harald Fairhair’s elite ‘wolf-skinned’ warriors wading out into battle, spears and shields reddened with blood (recounted by Sturluson in Hollander, 1964: 75).

Repeated references to such warriors can be found in both written sources and the material culture of a period extending from Antiquity through to the setting down of the Icelandic sagas in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But what were the characteristics that defined the berserkr, physically, culturally and, most importantly to this work, psychologically? It should first be noted that, while not a restlessly fluid figure, the berserkr could not claim to be a conceptually static one either. ² Undoubtedly a shift in prestige can be seen to occur, if not paradigmatically then in nuance, over the centuries during which evidence for the berserkir can be found. The berserkir of the skaldic poems, ³ associated with powers of physical and psychological transformation through the animal skins they wore, become in the later sagas cyphers for unruly bullies, fodder for the heroes of the tales. ⁴ Given the fluctuations in martial exigency over a thousand-year period, it is possible that this judgemental shift (from valued champions to discomfiting outlaws) was owed mostly to the shift away from reckless, frenzied skirmishing towards the more cautious and stylized form of duelling that characterized combat in medieval Iceland. ⁵ But it is perhaps no coincidence that the berserkir were once considered sacred to the Norse god Óðinn and that a nascent Christian society would have been at pains to distance itself from such religious associations. Certainly by the time of the codification of the Icelandic law code Grágás, the practice of berserkrgangr was sufficiently disruptive to societal harmony to warrant outlawry and, according to Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar, in 1015 Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson similarly declared it illegal in Norway (Hreinnson, 1997, vol. II: 77). ⁶

Defining the berserkir

Despite these changing perceptions of the berserkir, certain defining attributes recur in both the earlier and later incarnations. Most obviously, the berserkir were considered indomitable warriors, the paragons of the battlefield. Haraldr Hárfagri used them as a vanguard: shock troops cast foremost into battle to splinter the morale of their opponents. ⁷ This martial prowess is not explained simply in terms of skill at arms, but is derived rather from their raw strength and resilience to pain and injury. (The invulnerability to iron and/or fire is a repeated trope. ⁸ ) Tactically they fought with abandon, consumed by a bloodlust that could blur the distinction between friend and foe. ⁹ Irrespective of the actual etymological derivation of their name, their bestial quality is emphasized and, certainly in the earlier sources, this extended to the symbolism of their physical accoutrements (such as the animal skins worn into battle). ¹⁰ Coupled with this latter element, we may also perceive a cultic quality, sometimes stated explicitly (the berserkir were Odin’s men, according to Sturluson) and at other times inferred through behavioural patterns. Hornklofi says of them that they formed a sealed group (Page, 1995: 109), while it is stated in Svarfdæla saga (Hreinsson, 1997, vol. IV: 157) that a berserkr deferred his duel until three days after Yule, the festival sacred to Óðinn. In number, we may also discern the trace of the sacred, for whether as outlaws in the later sagas or bodyguards in the earlier, the berserkir often occur in groups of 12. ¹¹

Other characteristics are mentioned, though not all consistently. Some sources refer to the exhaustion that consumed the berserks after their battle rage had passed. It was said that after their fury had abated, the berserkir were as weak as infants. ¹² Interestingly, there is also some suggestion that an altered mental state may have preceded the berserk rage. The character of Egil Skallagrímsson, protagonist of perhaps the best known of the Icelandic family sagas, comprises one such example. Although Egil is never described explicitly as a berserkr, so many parallels present themselves in his portrayal that it is impossible not to read the saga and imagine that to a contemporary audience this possibility was not tacitly understood (and Egil’s paternal lineage is clearly suggestive of this association). ¹³ Throughout his saga, Egil is prone to both melancholia and deep, brooding anger. ¹⁴ Sitting at court before King Athelstan (king of the English 927–39), he simmers and glowers, inflamed by both the death of his brother Thorolf in battle and a perceived sense of injustice at the king’s lack of generosity. But his moods appear to dip and soar, a state of mind perhaps physically manifest in the workings of his countenance: ‘[Egil] wrinkled one eyebrow right down onto his cheek and raised the other up to the roots of his hair . . . [h]e refused to drink even when served, but just raised and lowered his eyebrows in turn.’ ¹⁵ When eventually the king addresses Egil and rewards him with a public display of honour (and plunder, to boot), Egil’s mood turns upwards, inspiring him to recite some verses. Indeed, throughout the saga, Egil’s fluctuant affect is woven within his poetic temperament. ¹⁶

Shield-biting and howling are repeatedly cited as activities that preceded and even precipitated berserkrgangr; such habits support the theory that the rage was a trance-like state induced by particular ritual behaviours, perhaps those that emulated perceived animal characteristics. ¹⁷ At other points the physical appearance of the berserks is accentuated. In the later sagas they are usually portrayed as hulking giants, almost troll-like in their countenance. In Egil’s saga, the companions of Egil’s father Skallagrim are described as: ‘The hardest of men, with a touch of the uncanny about a number of them . . . they [were] built and shaped more like trolls than human beings’ (Hreinsson, 1997, vol. I: 60). ¹⁸ Egil himself is painted as a vivid and distorted specimen:

Egil had very distinctive features, with a wide forehead, bushy brows and a nose that was not long but exceptionally broad . . . [W]ith his thick neck and broad shoulders, he stood out from other men . . . [W]hen he was angry, his face grew harsh and fierce . . . [H]e was well built and taller than other men, with thick wolf-grey hair, although he had gone bald at an early age. (p. 100) ¹⁹

Attempts have been made to explain Egil’s physical qualities as a disease of the bone, ²⁰ but perhaps more than any other, we would argue that physical portrayal is a characteristic that lends itself to literary embellishment, an attempt to tarnish the berserk henchmen of the later sagas with the stain of villainy and misanthropy. It is certainly easy for these characters to be pulled narratively within the occult undercurrents of the tales, associated as they are with pagan survivals and superstition. ²¹

The animal quality of the berserk is worth exploring in greater detail. The association between the berserkir and particular animals is repeatedly elucidated, but interpreting the precise relationship between the elements of man and beast is complex. The shamanistic characteristics of Old Norse religion have been proposed as a way of understanding this (Schnurbein, 2003; Tolley, 2009), particularly as they pertain to the cultures of battle (Price, 2002), but we would argue that, while the concept is seductive, the evidence is not sufficiently robust to support the theory. A totemistic relationship would seem to fit the details better, given its more subtle criteria of inclusion. ²² There is again a chronological dimension to the manner in which human beings were seen to interface with animal beings in medieval Scandinavian cultures. The phenomenon of shape-changing is a case in point as it pertains to the berserkir. ²³ In the earlier fornaldarsögur, or ‘legendary sagas’, transformation is more suggestive of an actual bodily process (Heath, 2011), ²⁴ but by the time of the later sagas shape-shifting seems to be understood as more of a symbolic or psychological transmutation. ²⁵ The berserkers of the Íslendinga sögur are certainly characterized by lupine qualities (the howling and biting behaviours which in several instances even descend into biting out the throats of opponents), but there is little suggestion that they have taken on the bodily form of wolves (Tuczay, 2015: 68).

An altered mental state?

What, as modern interpreters, are we to make of these accounts of berserk behaviour? Academic explanations for the phenomenon have run a gamut. Scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, viewing the sources from what we may describe as an anthropological or literary perspective, were clear in identifying the ‘religious’ elements of the berserk. Hilda Ellis Davidson (1967: 100), noting the ritual dance of the Varangian Guard attested to by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, drew attention to the cultic qualities of the berserkir as ‘animal warriors’. ²⁶ Inevitably, the use of intoxicants or psychogenic substances was mooted. The proposal that the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria (the so-called ‘fly agaric’) was implicated in engendering a trance-like homicidal state has a venerable pedigree. It was first committed to print in 1784 by the Uppsala theologian Samuel Ödman and has been a persistent theory; as late as 1956, Howard Fabing, conducting an experiment on inmates at the Ohio State Penitentiary, concluded that bufotenine (a compound isolated from the mushroom and identified by him as the active hallucinogenic ingredient in certain Amanita) was responsible for the lack of fatigue and altered awareness displayed by the berserkir (Fabing, 1956). ²⁷ As epistemological inquiry shifted its focus to more biological mechanisms, explanations presented themselves that were more consonant with psychological or psychiatric paradigms. Psychopathy (or sociopathy) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have both been advanced as underlying causes of berserk behaviour, as has transient psychosis. Curiously (given the animal characteristics of the berserk), ‘lycanthropy’ (as a lived experience and putative psychiatric diagnosis) has not been explored as an explanation. ²⁸ But it is important to remember that, if not a commonplace modern diagnosis, within the hermeneutical context of the medieval medical mind lycanthropy existed as a legitimate diagnosis of disordered humours. ²⁹

Do the explanations offered above suffice to explain how a man might enter such a murderous rage that he felt no pain and became, in physical strength as in self-identity, an animal? It may well have been the case that drugs were used to help to precipitate the berserk state. Alcohol pervaded the culture of medieval Northern Europe, and its use among military units, both modern and historical, is well attested (Kamienski, 2016). Recent evidence from contemporary conflicts also seems clear in implicating particular drugs (such as Khat in Somalia and Captagon in Syria) as an (at least partial) explanation as to how young men might normalize violence against others and make comprehensible the prospect of their own demise. But is violence – moreover highly focused and structured violence (from a military perspective) – compatible with high levels of intoxication? We should not ignore the fact that the berserks were considered highly effective warriors and conducted warfare without the benefit of modern mechanized weaponry (firearms are great levellers in modern conflicts); they therefore had to be able repeatedly and consistently to maintain their proficiency in combat, whether in groups on the battlefield or individually as duellists. ³⁰ Thus, while the possibility that the berserk frenzy was in fact some sort of trance-like condition engendered by hallucinogens is seductive, it seems highly improbable that Amanita muscaria could be the sole agent responsible. Certainly A. muscaria is known for altering consciousness, and it takes its place within the herbarium of psychoactive plants as a candidate implicated in inducing the delusory states allegedly undergone by medieval witches and trans-Siberian shamen. ³¹ But ingestion of the fungus does not generally lead to focused aggression (though stimulation is reported as a paradoxical effect), but rather (as with psilocybins) a state of incapacitating psychedelia, as Fabing (1956) himself acknowledged. ³² Amanita might explain a sufficiently altered state of mind, but it falls short of efficiently accounting for the superhuman efforts of the berserkir. ³³

Psychiatric causes are also a possible explanation, but it is not instructive to reduce the berserk rage to the level of homicidal psychopathy, at least as this is understood in psychiatric terms. The sense of abandon that accompanied berserkrgangr is not really consonant with either Machiavellian or narcissistic personality traits and, moreover, berserk rage is often described as if it ‘comes over’ the berserkr, not so much as a continuously unwinding psychological state. ³⁴ More pertinent psychiatric diagnoses, for example Intermittent Explosive Disorder or Bouffée Délirante, might take into account this paroxysmal nature of the rage (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013: 63). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has also been proposed by the clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay as originating in the experience of ‘going berserk’, with the author citing his personal experience with Vietnam veterans in support of this (Shay, 1994: 82). ³⁵ Shay’s theory centres upon the element of hyperarousal in PTSD, but there are other characteristic elements of the disorder that sit less comfortably. Flashbacks are key symptoms in the diagnosis of PTSD and there is no suggestion in the saga literature, which can be surprisingly sensitive in its depiction of the interior worlds of its protagonists, that these were acknowledged. Emotional numbing is similarly absent, and some characters, for example Egil, appear on the contrary to be emotionally quite engaged. It is also a critical aspect of PTSD that sufferers seek to avoid situations that may trigger recollections of the traumatic event; this definitely does not describe the outlook of the berserkir (who voluntarily returned to battle and indeed proudly exalted in it). More profoundly, we may ask: what could have been the traumatic precipitating stressor, especially given that berserkrgangr is described as a hereditary condition? (We may posit the hypothesis that some form of initiation rite may have led to the condition, but it seems unlikely that this could be replicated consistently and once again there is no mention in the sources of such a ritual.) ³⁶

A culture-bound syndrome or dissociative religious warband?

What is missing from these differing theories, which all contribute some peripheral insight while seemingly missing the heart of the matter? The written evidence suggests that some form of transient dissociative state drives the berserker, and this accords with repeated descriptions of them as being ‘not human’ while overcome by frenzy. ³⁷ The key to understanding the phenomenon of berserkrgangr lies in the fact that the explanation needs to allow for a man to be sufficiently able to function expertly on the battlefield and yet be dissociated enough that he could supersede reason with some form of transcendent or ‘meta’ consciousness (which, in effect, allowed him to overcome great physical hardship and any qualms of conscience). The cultic, almost liminal quality of the berserkir is an important clue to this aspect. We would like to propose that one of the earliest explanations as to what inspired berserk frenzy, that of its dissociative religious quality, can offer a cardinal intuition into what may have been its defining essence.

It is important to acknowledge that the berserk tendency was not considered a disease by contemporary culture and that therefore no remedy was offered (or sought) at that time. In seeking to explain the phenomenon, we therefore run a risk of pathologizing by retrospect, but there are several candidates within the lexicon of dissociative pathologies that hint at diagnosis (and yet, we would argue, do not properly explain the berserker). Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), an impulse-control disorder, is associated with dissociative states, though not to the degree reported in the so-called ‘culture-bound syndrome’ (CBS) of (running) amok. The latter state describes a sudden episode of mass assault against animate or inanimate objects, characteristically preceded by an intense period of brooding; observed initially in Malay and Indonesian cultures and considered as a CBS confined to them, it is now classified as psychopathological by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5 – APA, 2013; Paniagua, 2000). Significantly, the DSM notes that ‘unlike Intermittent Explosive Disorder, amok typically occurs as a single episode rather than as a pattern of aggressive behavior and is often associated with prominent dissociative features’ (APA, 2000: 665). IED is, nevertheless, commonly diagnosed with psychiatric co-morbidities (including dissociation disorders) and, in terms of symptoms, accords quite well with certain characteristics of berserk rage outlined above. The defining feature of IED is a tendency to extreme outbursts of anger or violence, disproportionate to any instigating stressor, often accentuated to the point of rage. This is certainly consonant with berserkrgangr. It is also associated in some cases with affective alterations preceding the event, such as mood or energy swings, and in some cases symptoms of sympathetic nervous agitation (for example, sweating and palpitations). This we may also see reflected in the berserk state. In many cases a sense of relief and even elation accompanies the outburst in IED, very often followed by a sense of remorse and low mood; again this is suggestive of the berserk personality described in the literature. Contra this argument, IED outbursts cannot be, at least as defined by the DSM, premeditated or serve any premeditated purpose. ³⁸

Totemism as a form of Multiple Personality Disorder?

Recent archaeological studies of Bronze Age communities on the Russian steppes have identified cultures of ritualized canid sacrifice and consumption, which the study authors have hypothesized were precipitants of individuation into manhood and initiation into warbands (Anthony and Brown, 2017). A similar trope is attested to by Cicero, who wrote of a ‘wolf festival’ that was the most ancient of Roman rituals, wherein dogs were sacrificed as part of a coming-of-age rite for adolescent boys. Undoubtedly, this intimate connection between canids and violence pervaded the psyche well into the Renaissance in Italy, albeit perhaps in an attenuated form. Edward Muir (1993: 222) (referencing Le Roy Ladurie), in his study on the vicious and factionalized culture of vendetta in Renaissance Italy, refers to the ‘spontaneously nominalist’ mental habits of the period, that is to say the prevalence of a mentality that was ‘better adapted to handling objects . . . than dealing with abstract concepts’. ³⁹ In practice, concepts often became enriched with a quality of substantive understanding that took them somewhere beyond the metaphorical, while perhaps stopping short of arriving at the literal. As this applied to dogs, canine traits were often so conflated with the human that a certain apotropaic personification took place, and dogs were often incorporated within the household for the purposes of legal protection accorded during feuds. ⁴⁰ For Muir, this nominalist analogizing served the purpose of making sense of poorly understood or chaotic events. By a simple syllogism, the consuming need for revenge could be understood as a ‘form of wildness’, a trait in men paralleled by the periodic unpredictability of the dog consumed by rabies (p. 227). Just as the ancient Greeks distinguished between the calculated anger of Odysseus’ revenge and the wolfish lyssa of Hector on the battlefield, so the Renaissance Fruilians that make up Muir’s study understood the need for both types of anger in pursuing vendetta; ‘in effect’, writes Muir, ‘the dog provided an explanation – to wit, the killers were like rabid dogs, besides themselves in anger, and did not know what they were doing’ (p. 227).

The archaeologist Neil Price, in examining warrior practices of the Vikings, sorcery (seiðr) and shamanism, has argued for what he describes as ‘the supernatural empowerment of aggression’ (Price, 2002: 197). We do not believe that the dominant Viking culture subscribed to shamanistic practices, except insofar as it encountered the worldview of Sámi (‘Lapp’) peoples on its margins and may have superficially traded tropes in the ontological marketplace. We do however believe that totemistic beliefs pervaded the ‘cognitive architecture’ of medieval Scandinavia and that Price has offered an important insight into the manner in which identification with the ‘supernatural’ can enable transformative mental (and indeed, physical) states. The berserkir may have been religious in the specific sense of devotion of Odin but also in a more abstract totemic sense. (Also, we propose, these would not have been mutually exclusive categories.) Totemism is a somewhat unstable concept, but at some fundamental level it is involved experientially with the identification of the human with the non-human, ⁴¹ even in some instances to the point that the animal spirit supplants or possesses the human mind. Modern psychiatry has yielded the diagnostic classification of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, formerly ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’, MPD), which is defined by the intermittent subversion of the primary egotistical mind by an ‘alter’ ego. The DSM-5 states that the condition is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct and persistent personality states; ⁴² importantly, these ‘alters’ are often reported as episodes of supernatural ‘possession’ and can even include the phenomenon of ‘animal alters’ (Hendrickson, 1990). Associated with this ‘fragmented’ identity, the individual experiences a disruption in sense of self, agency, behaviour, cognition, consciousness and even motor function (APA, 2013: 292). Frequent absences in memory are symptomatic of the disorder. The psychiatrist Ellert Nijenhuis (Nijenhuis and Van der Hart, 2011) has furthermore proposed a distinction between the aspect or fragment of personality responsible for everyday functioning and that which is dominant during traumatic events. He concludes that traumatic experiences, particularly those suffered in the formative developmental years and that directly threaten the physical self, may trigger atavistic psychobiological responses such as those involved in ‘fight or flight’ reactions. ⁴³ There are certainly interesting parallels between what is described during the dissociative episodes of DID/MPD and the cognitive transformations of the berserker. But crucially, even allowing for Nijenhuis and Van der Hart’s observations, the diagnosis is broadly described in the medical literature as incapacitating and thus does not map squarely onto whatever psychic state was undergone during berserkrgangr.

A pagan death cult?

A final point worth considering draws upon another facet of the religious experience as portrayed by the berserkir, that is to say their cultic dimension. A crucial aspect of the berserkir must be their identification with Odin in his many aspects; not only are they explicitly portrayed as warriors sacred to him, but the influence of the god manifests in other more subtle fashions in the sources relating to such warriors (it is Odin who is said to gift Egil his poetic inspiration, for example). Odin himself, as a god, is a shape-changer and it has been argued that he also occupies the role of god of death in Old Norse mythology (Grundy, 2014). ⁴⁴ This latter association, while more nebulous in attribution, is important, for (if correct) it would position the berserkir as members of a death cult. The psychology of death cults is a slightly fraught area of inquiry, but we believe it would be fair, in the sense in which their members are admitted into some form of transcendent (or delusional, according to perspective) mental state, to categorize them as an example of ecstatic religious belief (Buckley and Galanter, 1979). ⁴⁵ The reported and observed phenomenon of religious ecstasy has been investigated by both psychologists and anthropologists and can be broadly described as an altered state of consciousness or awareness engendered by a culturally specific, intense ritualized focus or technique (such as physical exertion, dancing, music, fasting or psychogenic drugs). This transcendent state is often accompanied by visionary perception and a sense of euphoria, and has been heavily identified with the process undertaken as part of the shamanic spirit journey (Lewis, 1975). Recalling the shield-biting and howling behaviours of the berserkir we might observe certain parallels, especially when we consider the physical component of the berserk frenzy. ⁴⁶

Conclusion: man into animal, animal into man

We believe that the berserkir were a warband whose psyches were forged in a collective dissociative religious state probably triggered by ritual behaviour and some degree of drug or alcohol usage. Recent research into the psychological aspects of religious experience has concluded that spiritual or religious beliefs may be associated with altered brain states and chemistry, though it is not clear how the relationship plays out in terms of sufficient, necessary and contributory causes. The theory of ‘schizotypy’ has proposed that all personality states or experiential characteristics occupy a continuum, and that psychosis and the pathology defined as schizophrenia fall at one end of this (rather than presenting as discrete conditions which are either present or absent) (Clarke, 2013). According to this theory the ‘religious mind’, replete with visions and imaginative dissociations, is one that may undergo interludes common to psychosis (but not to the point of interruption of function, as in schizophrenia). The forensic psychiatrist Gwen Adshead (2015) has spoken of ‘ecologies of violence’ in which violence can be understood not simply as an inevitable event in certain individuals but as a propensity proceeding from sufficient organic and cultural substrates. While undefined in biochemical terms, her concept of psychic substrates remains a valid one. It is against such a conceptual backdrop that we believe we must interpret the berserkir; these were not merely psychotic individuals but high-functioning warriors possessed of a transcendent tenacity. We believe that religion supplied for the berserker an ingrained psychic substratum that predisposed them towards altered states of dissociated consciousness, but that episodes of berserkergangr would have been induced by a precipitant of some type, be that psychogenic substances (including alcohol), ritualized behaviours or some combination thereof. The fact that these warriors maintained such a high level of battlefield proficiency suggests that any chemical inducement must have been moderated and may only have provided a symbolic value in uniting the warband or catalysing the rage state. ⁴⁷ These episodic furies would have been transient but utterly encompassing, carrying the berserker far beyond the parameters of their normal capabilities and consciousness.

We may never know with certainty what occurred on the battlefields of history, but similar manifestations of ‘belief-’ or ‘faith-bound martial states’, that share characteristics of behaviour and aetiology but span broad spectra of time and place, suggest that a shared process runs throughout (albeit perhaps one nuanced by, but not bound to, the specificities of culture). The berserker, the Fianna of Celtic mythology and the Maenads of Dionysus (not to mention suicide bombers and extremist fighters of recent times) cannot be explained simply by means of drugs that alter minds. ⁴⁸ Certainly drugs may have accentuated or helped achieve a shift in consciousness, disinhibited fear or altered physiological function on the battlefield. But some form of prior conviction seems to have led these warriors to the battlefield in the first instance and, in the case of the groups above, that conviction is best understood as the product of a spiritual or religious formation. ⁴⁹ A key feature here appears to have been the warband’s hereditary or group nature. Collective dissociative states are reported (for example, as an aspect of death cults) and in this it may also be that, given the group nature of this formation, some role for culture is inevitable. The berserkir rarely operated alone, whereas most of the impulse control diagnoses considered above (IED, Bouffée Délirante and amok) pertain to individuals. The ontological beliefs of the Vikings provided for them a means of conceptualizing and experiencing the very fabric of their religious world and, in the case of the berserks, provided a psychic substrate transformed into lived reality (with terrifying consequences).

While these states may be said to be ‘culture-bound’ in the sense that they manifest with some cultural specificity, we believe that they essentially share sufficient characteristics to justify their consideration as a collective phenomenon arising from precursors common to multiple societies. What recurs in the sources is the suggestion of a dislocation or transmogrification of the psyche, essentially transcendent and possibly disinhibited by drugs or alcohol. Thus loosened and fluid, the mind appears trammelled into atavistic behavioural archetypes or ‘lycanthropic’ (xenomorphic) patterns of identity. It is as if whatever psychic substrate that forms identity, made molten in the crucible of ritual intoxication, is temporarily reformed in another mould, a mould preformed archetypally (whether we consider this archetype to be broadly psychological, spiritual or metaphysical). The metaphysical sequence of analogy described in these processes of animal identification can form conduits not only of understanding but also cyphers of behaviour. The totem sits somewhere along this semiological-behavioural axis of exchange. In the case of the berserkir we would suggest that the archetypal shaping of identity was totemic in origin and, as such, these cultic warriors should be differentiated from other combatants who exhibited less immersive spiritual beliefs. ⁵⁰ For the totemic worshipper, association could be so powerful that it might manifest not simply as association but as becoming. This need not simply be interpreted as cognitive degeneration, but may indeed be perceived as an almost transformative psychic exercise. In his book Being a Beast, the anthropologist Charles Foster (2016: 156) describes the therianthropic imperative of ancient religions as the ‘ancient and earnest need to unite the human and animal worlds’. For Foster, ‘[s]hamanic transformation is the natural corollary of highly developed Theory of Mind’ (p. 273). We might argue that the pre-modern mind, and its greater symbiosis with the natural world, gave rise to an enhanced porosity between the psychic boundaries demarcating beast and man; and it may be that the use of symbolic ritual and mind-altering chemicals allowed for a further sensitization of this more permeable membrane. In a very different context, it has been observed that religion ‘is the opiate of the masses’. In the context of the berserker, religion should be considered the opiate of the warband.