The Role of the Berserker in Viking Society

The berserker's place in society was limited by the terror and violence that was associated with berserkergang. As superb warriors, they were due admiration. However, their tendency to turn indicriminately upon their friends while the madness was upon them went squarely against he heroic ethic, which demanded loyalty and fidelity to one's friends. The berserk skirted the classification of *ni(dh)ingr*, one who was the lowest of men and the object of hate and scorn. An eleventh-century monument raised in Soderby in Uppland, Sweden in memory of a brother reads: "And Sassur killed him and did the deed of a *nidingr* --- he betrayed his comrade" (Foote and Wilson, p. 426).

The primary role of the berserk was as a warrior attacked to a king's army. Both King Harald and King Halfdan had berserker shock-troops. Aside from their military value, the berserker's ties to Odhinn would have been welcome in a royal army, since Odhinn also had a particular association with rulership, being venerated in Anglo-Saxon England as the ancestor of chieftains, and throughout the North as god of kings and protector of their royal power (Dumezil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen, p. 26). Outside of this role, however, the berserker became the stock villain of the sagas, typified as murderous, stupid brutes, or as one modern critic has it, "a predatory group of brawlers and killers who disrupted the peace of the Viking community repeatedly" (Fabing, p. 232).

Saxo Grammaticus speaks of such a band in his Gesta Danorum:

The young warriors would harry and pillage the neighborhood,
and frequently spilt great quantities of blood. They considered
it manly and proper to devastate homes, cut down cattle, rifle
everything and take away vast hauls of booty, burn to the ground
houses they had sacked, and butcher men and women
indicriminately" (Saxo, Vol. I, p. 163).

In addition to their warlike activities within their communities, berserkers are characterized by their sexual excesses, carrying off wives, daughters and betrothed maids who then must be rescued by the heroes of the sagas. Saxo was particularly upset by this behavior:

So outrageous and unrestrained were their ways that they ravished other men's wives and daughters; they seemed to have outlawed chastity and driven it to the brother. Nor did
they stop at married women but also debauched the beds
of virgins. No man's bridal-chamber was safe; scarcely
any place in the land was free from the imprints of their lust"
(Saxo, Vol. I, p. 118).

It was no doubt due to these excesses of the berserker that resulted in their demise. In 1015 King Erik outlawed berserks, along with *holmganga* or duels (Fabing, p. 235): it had become a common practice for a berserker to challenge men of property to holmgang, and upon slaying the unfortunate victim, to take possession of his goods, wealth, and women.
This was a difficult tactic to counter, since a man so challenged had to appear, have a champion fight for him, or else be named *ni(dh)ingr* and coward.

Egils saga Skallagrimsonar records one such encounter:

there's a man called Ljot, a berserker and duel-fighter, hated by
everyone. he came here and asked to marry my daughter, but we gave him a
short answer and said no to his offer. After that Ljot challenged my son
Fridgeir to single combat, so he has to go and fight the duel tomorrow on
the isle of Valdero" (Palsson and Edwards, Egil's Saga, p. 169).

In 1123, the Icelandic Christian Law stated, "If someone goes berserk, he is punished with lesser outlawry and the men who are present are also banished if they do not bind him." Lesser outlawry (*fjorbaugsgard*) was a sentence of three years' banishment from the country. Berserkergang was thus classed with other heathen and magical practices, all unacceptable in a Christian society (Foote and Wilson, p. 285). Certainly where berserkers were associated with the cult of Odhinn, and such spellcasting as was associated with their immunity to weapons or shape-changing, this activity would appropriately be classed as "heathen and magical." By the twelfth century, the berserker with his Odhinnic religion, animalistic appearance, his inhuman frenzy upon the battlefield, and terrorism within
the Scandinavian community disappeared. The berserk, like his patron deity Odhinn, was forced to yield to the dissolution of pagan society and the advent of the White Christ.