June 25, 2026 • 31 mins
Vikings! Even centuries after their heyday, these seafaring Scandinavian raiders are the subject of countless works of fiction and film -- and some of the stories about them are true. And, legend has it, there was one sort of Viking even other Viking feared: the Berserker. If you believe the stories, these blood-crazed guys rushed into battle howling like beasts, wearing nothing but a bear skin, attacking friend and foe alike. So how much of this is fact, and how much just tall tales? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max try to find out.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are following up with
what has become a warrior week here at Ridiculous History. Yeah,
let's give a big shout out to our super producer,
mister Max Williams, Max.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
King. What's that thing where they pull your lungs out
your back?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
An eagle, blood Eagle, Blood Eagle, Max the Blood Eagle Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, uh yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
If uh, if you're like us, us being Nold Brown
out in Ben Bullen, you're a fan of historical propaganda
prestige television like the creatively named amazing show Vikings or
countless Films.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Which I think depicts the blood already a certain it does?
It does?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
We already know the typical image of these reavers, right
and all. They're big, they're hairy, they're smelly maniacs, they
have horned helmets. They just want to wage war on
the civilized world at large. They overwhelm people like a
blitzkrieg force, and they kill their enslave everybody. They take
whatever they can carry back on their ships. They go
(01:38):
back to their own settlement to resupply, They party hard,
they do strange rituals like a blood eagle, and then
they question their surviving victims for information to help them
plan the next raid, like where's the next closest village
to you?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Dark stuff, but you know, exciting the stuff of legend,
the stuff of lore, and often what's that movie with
a scar our guard recently that was did a fine
job of depicting normand.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, indeed, yes beautiful.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Just rewatch that actually in preparation for this, and no,
there's something that stood out to us so much that
we did an episode similar to this on our sister shows.
Stuff they don't want you to know, So check that
out if you want a different take on this. Dude,
can you imagine us be Vikings and in our crew
(02:30):
we're all hard cases, right, but in our crew we
have this one group of fighters that even frighten us.
They're dangerous, they're unhinged. Even when we're just hanging out
at home. They are as likely to assault and murder
us as they are to raid a village. We wonder
if they're touched by gods. We wonder if they're possessed
(02:51):
by evil spirits. We wonder whether they are even human
at all. These are the berserkers.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
My love for you is like a truck berserk.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
In the next line, I can't say on the pot,
but the following line is my love for you is
ticking clock berserk.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Would you like to some pot berserk?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Sorry as Kevin's a fictional fictional song from Clerks, but
the berserk bend. First of all, let's just get this
out of the way. Were these big burley naked guys
that ate a lot of drugs and scared people on
the battlefield, Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
The answer is maybe, Okay, we'll see there were pelts
involved too, right, I think there were some animal pelts
involved too. That's what the historians are still arguing about
thousands of years after the fact. We know that Viking,
yeah right, and congrats to everybody writing their dissertation. So
(03:56):
the Vikings, we know were a seafaring culture from the
area of the world that is present day Denmark, Norway
and Sweden on your map. But no, we don't really
know where the word Viking comes from.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
That's true, which is odd. You know, we're such etymology fans.
But the old Norse word the king gear usually was
translated to pirate or raider. That is one of the
theories of the etymology, but we have numerous ones, and
one of our favorites suggests that the words origin is
actually from Old English vising or weissing and the Old
(04:34):
Frisian word whizzing.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It makes me think of wizard powers, it makes me
think of piek. Wait a minute, it makes on the
electric fence. Don't do it, don't do it? And who
are the Frisians?
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Man?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
They sound fun.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I'm sure everybody back then was super fun and smelled
super great. The reason we like vc or wheezing or
vzing is because both of those words are almost three
hundred years older than the Old Norse word viking gear.
And those two words, the Frisian and the Old English,
they derive from vic spelled wic, relating to the Latin
(05:13):
vicus meaning village or habitation. So we have decided on
ridiculous history that Viking as a word means the village people.
It's fine the way at the y MCA.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That's amazing, the village people.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Oh Ben, And I was doing a little digging into
so good, Yes, so good.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I was doing a little.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Digging into the Frisian people and They had a codex
of law called the Lex Frisonium, which I just think
is fun beautiful. We should get They were master fishermen.
They were really good at dyke building.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And they were also really good at like land reclamation
and other like you know, sustainable farming techniques. So them,
along with many other seafaring folks from the region where
we're super innovative.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, especially when they weren't getting raided by these mad
Max level monstrous warships down It's weird because, as our
pal Jabbari pointed out in some previous episodes, history happens concurrently,
not necessarily as a series of isolated distinct events. So
at the same time that the Crusades are coming into
(06:21):
play in the eighth century to about the late one
thousands or so, the Vikings are a huge expansion force.
They travel all the way from the Mediterranean to North Africa,
the Middle East and Newfoundland in Canada, which they called Venland.
That makes them, by the way, so far as history knows,
(06:41):
the first Europeans to reach North America. It's weird because
they were raiding a lot, that's what they're most well
known for. But sometimes they would just peacefully trade with
other cultures, especially, I think if they looked at the
other cultures, army and bruisers said, we're gonna get our
(07:01):
butts kicked if we try to fight these guys that
particular bear. Yeah, yeah, that's not to poke, that particular berserker.
And then they would settle in places with better weather.
They were pretty misunderstood. They're portrayed as illiterate, uncultured, barbaric.
At least some of this has to be trash talking
(07:23):
from their regional rivals.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Oh yeah, as is often the case, you know, when
different cultures are depicted by the cultures who were not
fond of them. So much of the prevailing history about
Vikings was written century later by, as we pointed out,
descendants of their victims, rivals and blood enemies, so similar
stories about the Knights, Templar and the Hashishim. They were
(07:47):
maligned oftentimes, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a
seed of truth to some of these more outland distales.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, their haters wrote the history and embellished and exaggerated
it just like a cod piece. But but yeah, there
was there was a country there.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
They're always it.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
All right, we'll keep it. Typologies to all the substitute
teachers touting in. So we know that the Vikings did
have literacy. They did make inscriptions via runs, but literacy
was late to their cultural game, and a lot of
what we think of as that popular Viking appearance is
misinfo and propaganda or disinfo. Actually, the horned helmets, they
(08:36):
don't make a lot of sense in realistic combat. And
I think you, as a former wee German boy, would
love that we we found why horned helmets became a thing.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
They probably started based around an illustration from an eighteen
twenty five edition of a piece of Nordic lore. Fro
Jesus is a tough one, Frith the Off sounds like
I got a list, but that's how it's sled Frith
the Off's saga. And then of course this myth and
this tale and collection of myths was interpreted and injected
(09:11):
into the neck of popular culture through Recard Wagner's ring cycle,
and of course the fat Ladies what sang with their
horned helmets, the valkyries that are depicted, and my mom actually,
as a metso soprano, played one of the valkyries in
several multiple.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Ways, that's awesome, dude, Toyota, that's awesome. We know that
when we see Wagner's ring cycle get interpreted over and
over again. There is one person responsible for this horned
helmet idea. It's Carl Ebel Doppler. This is a costume
(09:53):
designer from eighteen seventy six and had a flair for
the dramatic way more than a flair for his oracle accuracy.
So that's where it comes from. Another stereotype. No, were
these guys just sewing chaos for the for the hall
of it, for the heck of it.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Just for the get, just for the smell of it. Well,
I mean you already kind of addressed this, Ben, I mean,
they were in many cases just trying to survive and
you know, be functional and move to places where they
could have community. But they certainly there were bands of
(10:37):
bad apples I imagine within the vikings. Sure they didn't
just wake up though, No, huh, exactly to your point, Ben,
They didn't just wake up one day and randomly decide
that they were going to be the agents of chaos.
There were multiple factors that led to the spread of
this kind of behavior. Yeah, yeah, just conquering pillaging, at
(11:00):
least you know a version of it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, absolutely, Because Vikings were also farmers, they weren't always outrating,
but the problem often came down to their home turf,
very punishing weather, not great soil, very poor soil that
necessitated them looking outward for sustenance. Otherwise they would and
(11:23):
in several cases did, starved to death, like entire areas.
So not every Norse person is a Viking, like not
every puzzle is amazed. Most Vikings were more like young
college bros on their gap year, and they were trying
to get rich before they settled down. But as he
said earlier, there's a grain of truth to every story,
(11:45):
even the trash talking. So yes, some of these guys
were indeed career killers. And those career killers didn't actually
have a long work life. Their careers were pretty short.
They met with a brutal end. And the most infamous
of the killers are the berserker.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
The berserkers, the old Norse berserkers, the legend of the
Old Norse berserkers, a word that roughly translates to bear
shirt and now.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Just means going wild. You're berserk, But not everybody agrees.
Much like Viking, you will often also hear instead of
And just to be clear, my initial spelling would.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Be bear like like the creature.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Others thought that it meant bear as in no shirt
at all, bare or bear chested.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, tops off, party time. And it's it's weird because,
like you were teasier earlier in the stories, these strange, implacable,
unstoppable warriors are running into battle naked save for like
a bear skin cloak, and they're howling like beasts. They're
attacking not just their victims or their foes, but also
(13:03):
anybody who's in their way. So, if you believe the legends,
these are early versions of things like suicide bombers or
Kama case divine wind. They're living weapons. They have no
regard for their own personal safety, let alone anybody else's.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
I mean, come on right, no way, yeah, but way,
but yes, way yeah, yeah, I'm picturing Sampson from the
twenty eight Years Later movies, just like you know, big
giant hanging dong and just running ats, just screaming and
then ripping off heads. I like, twenty eight years Maybe
not that, maybe that is a little bit, you know,
(13:40):
it's a fun to think about, but now not quite
that but of course quite something.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Berserkers were very much a real thing, as in there
were definitely Viking warriors. Of course, when we get to
the Berserkers, we are hitting a boundary between fantasy and fact.
Not everyone agrees that these guys actually ran around in
their skivvies or under well, maybe no skivies at.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
All, commando, or under some sort of pelt a bear skin.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Even if we think they can consider that that might
be true, people also can't quite agree on whether it
was a bear skin, a wolf skin, or some other
type of animal hide. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, maybe it's propaganda because bears are scary, but the
Vikings could have I love your point about wolves because
the Vikings could have been wearing the skin of wolves,
which are also common in the area, and that gives
us an interesting bit about speculation to resurg and so
wear wolf legends in Europe. By the way, if you
(14:39):
haven't seen Brotherhood of the Wolf, check it out. No spoilers.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, unrelated to this story, but we definitely did an
episode on the Beast of govel Down.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I believe that that was based on we did, didn't we?
We sure did. Yeah, there was.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Some sort of mythical beasts plaguing the French countryside and
it had to be stuff. But this movie definitely goes
way farther with that concept, and it's a hoot somehow,
like a kung fu movie mixed with a historical kind
of intrigue period piece. And then it also has like
some kind of sci fi kind of elements too.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
It's really really cool, some mortal combat elements. Next up,
we've got those rumors of super strength, because berserkers are
always depicted kind of like Bucky in Marvel's Winter Soldier.
Did you see that one? It was one of the
best ones of that time.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You like that one? Yeah? No, I remember Bucky's the
one with like the robot arm right.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, Captain America's sidekick who gets
spoilers folks three to one, kidnapped by the Soviets and
then turned into a brainwashed It's like a Manurian candidate almost, right,
Just so, yeah, So the berserkers are depicted as having
almost superhuman levels of physical ability but definitely not mental ability. Well,
(15:59):
and that comes from or at least some speculation around
that that I think is also represented in that movie
The Northmen. Is this idea that they were taking some
psychoactive substances to make them, you know, kind of unhinged,
and we've got to get to that part. We also
have to let you know that even in the provable
(16:20):
literature of the time, not written by enemies the North Sagas,
the characters that are often interpreted as Vikings are also
depicted as villains in their own hometowns because they will
assault and murder people in their own host communities during
peacetime between raids. So what about the rumors that we're
(16:43):
teasing here about what makes them so beastly? No, we
got to go to Peter Pence, the curator of Danish
prehistory at the National Museum of Denmark. Pete breaks down
the pickle of this in a great interview from a
few years back with Millilitary History.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
According to Pens, Berserkers are mainly known from written medieval
accounts and not from the Vikings themselves. So again we
kind of maybe have another slightly is there an agenda here,
unreliable narrator kind of thing. Pence does make a note
at the primary written source of information on berserkers capital
B the real ones, not the legends, does come from
(17:22):
a guy with a fabulous name.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, fabulous name. His name is Snorri Sterlson.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
But I would I would love it only slightly more
if it was Snorri Snirlsen. But it is Snorri Sterlson,
an Icelandic historian who lived around twelve hundred CE, which
is just after the golden age of vikingdom.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, and our buddy Snory thinks of the berserkers. Yeah,
we got to go first name on that, which I just.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Think he sounds like us.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's like a sleepy boy with a candle, you know,
like and like a little sleep hat kind of clunk
shoeing his way through research.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
It sounds like a Nordic knockoff of Winnie the Pooh
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
There it is, Uh so, Snory, we're gonna use your
first name for this right in. If you have a
problem with.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
That, uh yeah, we'll berserk. You will perserk.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
The uh berserkers in Snorri's writing are a kind of
holy warrior. He writes that Odin's own men went into
battle without coats of mail and acted like mad dogs
or wolves. They bit their shields and were as strong
as bears of bulls. They killed people and neither fire
(18:34):
nor iron affected them. This is called berserker rage.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh yes, he's hulking out. Yeah, we're going to keep
in the in the marbledom of it all. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So okay, So if we go back to modern day
Pence over at the museum, we'll see that, he says,
Snorri is going with two interpretations of berserker. You're either
a fighter who goes to battle like you were saying
Nolan animal skins without armor, or you might be as
strong as a bearer, if not actually a bear yourself.
(19:06):
So the question that becomes, why on earth would anybody
go into battle but naked to.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Freak out the enemy? Man?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right right, you daaled it. You should work with the
National Museum of Denmark because that is one of their guesses.
They thought maybe it was a psyop man. Maybe you
see him running while they're hanging dong and you both
these guys are bonkerstras.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah they are, indeed they are.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Indeed, the museum knows that the nudity might have exactly
been what you said, been a psyop showing disregard for
their own personal safety, like those people that play Skyrim
with naked characters, you know or not not not Sky
elden Ring. But also you could do it with Skyrim.
But yeah, it is. It is definitely a flex, right.
It's saying like I either think I am so such
(20:00):
a badass that no one can touch me, or I'm
an insane person.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Or maybe they were.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Some some ven diagram of those two things as well.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, or maybe they were thinking that they would be
ordering a god of war so they would be willing
sacrifices in the battle.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Now, even Kratos wore some gear though.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Man, that's true, that's true. That's how we got through
so many video games.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Also true. Yeah, I think you know what if you
heard all the hubbub with all these like internet nerds
that are upset that the next God of War is
a woman? No, why are they because they're jerks.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
There's so many real world things to be upset about.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I know, Man, it's so weird.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Okay, well, guys, do your best.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I guess now, you know what, Ben, I'm gonna one
up beyond that one. Do better, do better?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, no, I agree with that. So we we also know,
especially if you've already checked out our episode on Nights
in Shining Armor, we know that there were probably horrid
ekin making practical issues at play, because first, armor is expensive,
it takes so much time from highly skilled laborers, especially
metal armor. And Second, honestly, folks, wearing a bunch of
(21:12):
armor slows you way down. It doesn't fit Viking rating tactics.
So those are about speed and overwhelming force. These are
hit and run jobs. Armor is not great for running,
so maybe it doesn't make sense for him.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
No, and to the point we actually both made in
the Knights and Armor episode that we published earlier this week,
there is a world where the less armor you have,
technically you're you've got a bit of an advantage on
your more heavily armored opponents.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Potentially, Yeah, because you're nimble and they're not. You want
to you, I mean, it's it's like fighting a really
big slow dude. Do you want to wait, make him
slower for them to clank over to you. Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Right, I mean the these berserkers would largely be the
beefiest of the boys too, which means that they would
be even more expensive to armor up.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh yeah, that's a great point too. Uh, here's the
part we've all been righted. Do we talk to drugs
ban Yeah, we got to figure out how they got.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
A rage so they do it, how they get into
hulk moon.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I don't want to put you on the spot too much,
but uh, you don't have to answer this, but what's
the most bloodthirsty and pissed that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
You have ever been? At one time? I took PCP?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
No, I'm kidd I've never done that, but you do
hear that is a drug that comes to mind when
you're thinking about this kind of behavior because there have
been stories of it, like giving people super strength, or
like you know, getting hit by a car and then.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Jumping back up, showing away out of a three story
window from the cops and a ducat of rolling and
then sca dadling on your broken ankle.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Ooh skadatdling Indeed, And Ben, I don't do blood thirsty really.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I really only get mad when.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Other people are being messed with. Frankly, But I can't
think of an exact example. But they didn't have PCP
back then, so what would they have potentially been ingesting,
Ben that would have caused them to hulk out in
this fashion.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, we've got three ideas. We're going to save the
fun one for last. The first is religious zeal. Oh, yeah,
hell of a drug on its own, right, Yeah. Yeah,
Like in the beginning, the idea of these kinds of
warriors was linked to some sort of mysterious cult, an
inner circle of people worshiping Odin.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Being imbued with superpowers.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Just so, it is possible that this famous rage was
a result of intense religious indoctrination in the beginning, and
we see that unfortunately, even today, members of modern cultic
organizations can be manipulately into acts they wouldn't commit otherwise,
like you know, suicide, Bobby, I mean, the more controversial one,
(24:08):
that is my opinion, the least fun We do have
to mention it, nol. What if these guys were bugging
out and hulking out because of mental health issues.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
M entirely possible they could have been identified and as such,
and they're commanding officers, let's call them, looked.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
At it as a feature, not a bug.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, and also a way that they would potentially be
able to use them as cannon fodder because they lacked
the self awareness to literally safeguard themselves.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Exactly. Yeah, It's it's more piece of well thought out speculation.
There isn't much in the way of proofd for this
because obviously we didn't have like the DSM five at
the time, but maybe they were, as you were saying,
hand selected based on recognition of schizotypal conditions. So instead
(24:57):
of executing them for witchcraft or like anthropy like other
societies were doing. This theory argues exactly what you just said.
Viking authorities may have gone, hell, yeah, you're an animal.
We got the perfect job for you.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Ye put you right out in the front.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know how you like running and you're always angry,
hop on the boat. Try not to kill any of
us on the boat, but you know, one or two
is fired.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
But I wonder if there was any friendly berserker behavior
tons apparently.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
To this parent if you depending on the legends, you.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Know what I mean, friendly fire, yeah, without fire, friendly smash.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
And they were like, well, that's what he got for
standing in front of us.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Ven, that's why don't stand in front of you. Don't
do it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So we got to get to the third most exciting theory,
which I know we are privately the personally the most
excited about drugs. Okay, noelque break down the drug theory
for us for sure.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
I mean, I think we've we've probably trickled a little
bit of it throughout the episode, but the idea was
that berserkers were often just regular folks, regular Viking warrior
raider types, which we know wouldn't be compared to a
normal citizen regular at all, But their ferocity really only
came into play once they ingested a particular kind of
(26:18):
hallucinogen or a psychoactive substance, often described as a combination
of herbs and mushrooms that to this day a lot
of speculation about and I know we've talked about this
on stuff they don't want you to know, and got
into some specifics about what these substances might have been.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, what they could have been, right, because it's not
plausible by any means, but it is just possible because
we know, like in the excellent film of the north Man,
we know that there were rituals involving ingesting substances, right,
the shamanistic vulva did that. So there's historical precedent in
(26:56):
Viking communities. But in a way, is that not like
is that not similar to say, twentieth century Americans had
access to LSD and cocaine. Therefore all marines were always
on acid and cocaine.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Well, for sure, it's definitely a bit of a leap.
But you know, we do, of course have examples of
military use of stimulants. For example, it is something that
can give folks an edge, whether it be for sleep
deprivation or just making you more aggressive. You know, we
(27:33):
know that the Nazis were quite fond of their their stimulants.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
Well, to jump in here real quick, I'm keeping this,
going to keep this very anonymous, but I have a
I have a friend of mine who was who has
done you know, sensitive military operations, and he was an officer,
and he talked about me about the presence of how
prevalent methmphetamines are in special operations, and he's just kind
(27:57):
of like, part of me is like, man, this is
with part of me is like, these guys are pretty terrifying.
They want to be like raised or focused while they're
doing this stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Absolutely, like, yeah, absolutely, the use of stimulants is as
old as war, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
But at the same time, to Max's point, you would
want it to sharpen you up, not make you an
unhinged you know, madman.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
You'd still want to be an asset, right because otherwise
you're useless to the operations. So with all this stuff
in mind, honestly, in our opinion, religious fervor seems to
be the most plausible consideration, primarily because fighting berserker style
(28:44):
might have been a one off thing for some of
these combatants. It may have been more like what we
could call an audition or a gang initiation. Because if
you survive and people are singing your praises and they're like,
this guy was awesome, running point, you've earned your stripe.
You become kind of a special forces or elite person.
(29:04):
So you get better job opportunities, right, you get better
going gigs. You can maybe become a bodyguard for the
political class. That's why things like, Okay, I don't love
this name, but there was a dude named King Harold
fine hair.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's a fun one. That's a weird one, Like, what
is it King Harold receding hairline.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, I don't know if it meant that he was
balding or his hair was thinning, or if it meant
that he just had really great claireal herbal Essence's hair.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, lustrous and voluminous.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah, maybe he was just always kind of in the wind.
Shaking his long hair. Maybe, but what seems most likely
is that something like Baserka exists or existed, we should say.
And they were mainly young men seeking wealth and status.
And if they could survive a dangerous raid, they were
(30:00):
get out of the game, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
They would buy the.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Farm, they would marry the girl. They would have a peaceful, much.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Longer life for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And this is where we're gonna leave it today, folks. Again,
if you want a different look at this, check out
our episode on stuff they don't want you to know.
If you haven't checked out our episode on Knights and
Shining Armor, please do give that a gander on your
podcast platform of choice. I've been our research associate for today.
Big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams, as
(30:31):
well as his anonymous and very experienced friend.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Indeed, huge thanks to Christopher Hasciotis and Eve's Jeffcoates here
in spirit, Alex Williams who composed our.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Theme, Jonathan Strickland aka the quist A, j Bahamas, Jacob's Doctor,
Rachel big Spinach, Lance and Ben.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
You know what. I've said it before and I'll say
it again.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Huge thanks to you and an excellent job on the
berserk research you did.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
On this one.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Thanks Man, and I thought we did a really good
job navigating that sensitive drug conversation.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I think so too.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Not so much with the DOM conversation, but Reord, we
do our level best.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, I can't win the wall.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
We'll see you next, Tie Polks.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are following up with
what has become a warrior week here at Ridiculous History. Yeah,
let's give a big shout out to our super producer,
mister Max Williams, Max.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
King. What's that thing where they pull your lungs out
your back?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
An eagle, blood Eagle, Blood Eagle, Max the Blood Eagle Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, uh yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
If uh, if you're like us, us being Nold Brown
out in Ben Bullen, you're a fan of historical propaganda
prestige television like the creatively named amazing show Vikings or
countless Films.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Which I think depicts the blood already a certain it does?
It does?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
We already know the typical image of these reavers, right
and all. They're big, they're hairy, they're smelly maniacs, they
have horned helmets. They just want to wage war on
the civilized world at large. They overwhelm people like a
blitzkrieg force, and they kill their enslave everybody. They take
whatever they can carry back on their ships. They go
(01:38):
back to their own settlement to resupply, They party hard,
they do strange rituals like a blood eagle, and then
they question their surviving victims for information to help them
plan the next raid, like where's the next closest village
to you?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Dark stuff, but you know, exciting the stuff of legend,
the stuff of lore, and often what's that movie with
a scar our guard recently that was did a fine
job of depicting normand.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, indeed, yes beautiful.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Just rewatch that actually in preparation for this, and no,
there's something that stood out to us so much that
we did an episode similar to this on our sister shows.
Stuff they don't want you to know, So check that
out if you want a different take on this. Dude,
can you imagine us be Vikings and in our crew
(02:30):
we're all hard cases, right, but in our crew we
have this one group of fighters that even frighten us.
They're dangerous, they're unhinged. Even when we're just hanging out
at home. They are as likely to assault and murder
us as they are to raid a village. We wonder
if they're touched by gods. We wonder if they're possessed
(02:51):
by evil spirits. We wonder whether they are even human
at all. These are the berserkers.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
My love for you is like a truck berserk.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
In the next line, I can't say on the pot,
but the following line is my love for you is
ticking clock berserk.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Would you like to some pot berserk?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Sorry as Kevin's a fictional fictional song from Clerks, but
the berserk bend. First of all, let's just get this
out of the way. Were these big burley naked guys
that ate a lot of drugs and scared people on
the battlefield, Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
The answer is maybe, Okay, we'll see there were pelts
involved too, right, I think there were some animal pelts
involved too. That's what the historians are still arguing about
thousands of years after the fact. We know that Viking,
yeah right, and congrats to everybody writing their dissertation. So
(03:56):
the Vikings, we know were a seafaring culture from the
area of the world that is present day Denmark, Norway
and Sweden on your map. But no, we don't really
know where the word Viking comes from.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
That's true, which is odd. You know, we're such etymology fans.
But the old Norse word the king gear usually was
translated to pirate or raider. That is one of the
theories of the etymology, but we have numerous ones, and
one of our favorites suggests that the words origin is
actually from Old English vising or weissing and the Old
(04:34):
Frisian word whizzing.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It makes me think of wizard powers, it makes me
think of piek. Wait a minute, it makes on the
electric fence. Don't do it, don't do it? And who
are the Frisians?
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Man?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
They sound fun.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I'm sure everybody back then was super fun and smelled
super great. The reason we like vc or wheezing or
vzing is because both of those words are almost three
hundred years older than the Old Norse word viking gear.
And those two words, the Frisian and the Old English,
they derive from vic spelled wic, relating to the Latin
(05:13):
vicus meaning village or habitation. So we have decided on
ridiculous history that Viking as a word means the village people.
It's fine the way at the y MCA.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That's amazing, the village people.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Oh Ben, And I was doing a little digging into
so good, Yes, so good.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I was doing a little.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Digging into the Frisian people and They had a codex
of law called the Lex Frisonium, which I just think
is fun beautiful. We should get They were master fishermen.
They were really good at dyke building.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And they were also really good at like land reclamation
and other like you know, sustainable farming techniques. So them,
along with many other seafaring folks from the region where
we're super innovative.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, especially when they weren't getting raided by these mad
Max level monstrous warships down It's weird because, as our
pal Jabbari pointed out in some previous episodes, history happens concurrently,
not necessarily as a series of isolated distinct events. So
at the same time that the Crusades are coming into
(06:21):
play in the eighth century to about the late one
thousands or so, the Vikings are a huge expansion force.
They travel all the way from the Mediterranean to North Africa,
the Middle East and Newfoundland in Canada, which they called Venland.
That makes them, by the way, so far as history knows,
(06:41):
the first Europeans to reach North America. It's weird because
they were raiding a lot, that's what they're most well
known for. But sometimes they would just peacefully trade with
other cultures, especially, I think if they looked at the
other cultures, army and bruisers said, we're gonna get our
(07:01):
butts kicked if we try to fight these guys that
particular bear. Yeah, yeah, that's not to poke, that particular berserker.
And then they would settle in places with better weather.
They were pretty misunderstood. They're portrayed as illiterate, uncultured, barbaric.
At least some of this has to be trash talking
(07:23):
from their regional rivals.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Oh yeah, as is often the case, you know, when
different cultures are depicted by the cultures who were not
fond of them. So much of the prevailing history about
Vikings was written century later by, as we pointed out,
descendants of their victims, rivals and blood enemies, so similar
stories about the Knights, Templar and the Hashishim. They were
(07:47):
maligned oftentimes, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a
seed of truth to some of these more outland distales.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, their haters wrote the history and embellished and exaggerated
it just like a cod piece. But but yeah, there
was there was a country there.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
They're always it.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
All right, we'll keep it. Typologies to all the substitute
teachers touting in. So we know that the Vikings did
have literacy. They did make inscriptions via runs, but literacy
was late to their cultural game, and a lot of
what we think of as that popular Viking appearance is
misinfo and propaganda or disinfo. Actually, the horned helmets, they
(08:36):
don't make a lot of sense in realistic combat. And
I think you, as a former wee German boy, would
love that we we found why horned helmets became a thing.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
They probably started based around an illustration from an eighteen
twenty five edition of a piece of Nordic lore. Fro
Jesus is a tough one, Frith the Off sounds like
I got a list, but that's how it's sled Frith
the Off's saga. And then of course this myth and
this tale and collection of myths was interpreted and injected
(09:11):
into the neck of popular culture through Recard Wagner's ring cycle,
and of course the fat Ladies what sang with their
horned helmets, the valkyries that are depicted, and my mom actually,
as a metso soprano, played one of the valkyries in
several multiple.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Ways, that's awesome, dude, Toyota, that's awesome. We know that
when we see Wagner's ring cycle get interpreted over and
over again. There is one person responsible for this horned
helmet idea. It's Carl Ebel Doppler. This is a costume
(09:53):
designer from eighteen seventy six and had a flair for
the dramatic way more than a flair for his oracle accuracy.
So that's where it comes from. Another stereotype. No, were
these guys just sewing chaos for the for the hall
of it, for the heck of it.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Just for the get, just for the smell of it. Well,
I mean you already kind of addressed this, Ben, I mean,
they were in many cases just trying to survive and
you know, be functional and move to places where they
could have community. But they certainly there were bands of
(10:37):
bad apples I imagine within the vikings. Sure they didn't
just wake up though, No, huh, exactly to your point, Ben,
They didn't just wake up one day and randomly decide
that they were going to be the agents of chaos.
There were multiple factors that led to the spread of
this kind of behavior. Yeah, yeah, just conquering pillaging, at
(11:00):
least you know a version of it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, absolutely, Because Vikings were also farmers, they weren't always outrating,
but the problem often came down to their home turf,
very punishing weather, not great soil, very poor soil that
necessitated them looking outward for sustenance. Otherwise they would and
(11:23):
in several cases did, starved to death, like entire areas.
So not every Norse person is a Viking, like not
every puzzle is amazed. Most Vikings were more like young
college bros on their gap year, and they were trying
to get rich before they settled down. But as he
said earlier, there's a grain of truth to every story,
(11:45):
even the trash talking. So yes, some of these guys
were indeed career killers. And those career killers didn't actually
have a long work life. Their careers were pretty short.
They met with a brutal end. And the most infamous
of the killers are the berserker.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
The berserkers, the old Norse berserkers, the legend of the
Old Norse berserkers, a word that roughly translates to bear
shirt and now.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Just means going wild. You're berserk, But not everybody agrees.
Much like Viking, you will often also hear instead of
And just to be clear, my initial spelling would.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Be bear like like the creature.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Others thought that it meant bear as in no shirt
at all, bare or bear chested.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, tops off, party time. And it's it's weird because,
like you were teasier earlier in the stories, these strange, implacable,
unstoppable warriors are running into battle naked save for like
a bear skin cloak, and they're howling like beasts. They're
attacking not just their victims or their foes, but also
(13:03):
anybody who's in their way. So, if you believe the legends,
these are early versions of things like suicide bombers or
Kama case divine wind. They're living weapons. They have no
regard for their own personal safety, let alone anybody else's.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
I mean, come on right, no way, yeah, but way,
but yes, way yeah, yeah, I'm picturing Sampson from the
twenty eight Years Later movies, just like you know, big
giant hanging dong and just running ats, just screaming and
then ripping off heads. I like, twenty eight years Maybe
not that, maybe that is a little bit, you know,
(13:40):
it's a fun to think about, but now not quite
that but of course quite something.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Berserkers were very much a real thing, as in there
were definitely Viking warriors. Of course, when we get to
the Berserkers, we are hitting a boundary between fantasy and fact.
Not everyone agrees that these guys actually ran around in
their skivvies or under well, maybe no skivies at.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
All, commando, or under some sort of pelt a bear skin.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Even if we think they can consider that that might
be true, people also can't quite agree on whether it
was a bear skin, a wolf skin, or some other
type of animal hide. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, maybe it's propaganda because bears are scary, but the
Vikings could have I love your point about wolves because
the Vikings could have been wearing the skin of wolves,
which are also common in the area, and that gives
us an interesting bit about speculation to resurg and so
wear wolf legends in Europe. By the way, if you
(14:39):
haven't seen Brotherhood of the Wolf, check it out. No spoilers.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, unrelated to this story, but we definitely did an
episode on the Beast of govel Down.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I believe that that was based on we did, didn't we?
We sure did. Yeah, there was.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Some sort of mythical beasts plaguing the French countryside and
it had to be stuff. But this movie definitely goes
way farther with that concept, and it's a hoot somehow,
like a kung fu movie mixed with a historical kind
of intrigue period piece. And then it also has like
some kind of sci fi kind of elements too.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
It's really really cool, some mortal combat elements. Next up,
we've got those rumors of super strength, because berserkers are
always depicted kind of like Bucky in Marvel's Winter Soldier.
Did you see that one? It was one of the
best ones of that time.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You like that one? Yeah? No, I remember Bucky's the
one with like the robot arm right.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, Captain America's sidekick who gets
spoilers folks three to one, kidnapped by the Soviets and
then turned into a brainwashed It's like a Manurian candidate almost, right,
Just so, yeah, So the berserkers are depicted as having
almost superhuman levels of physical ability but definitely not mental ability. Well,
(15:59):
and that comes from or at least some speculation around
that that I think is also represented in that movie
The Northmen. Is this idea that they were taking some
psychoactive substances to make them, you know, kind of unhinged,
and we've got to get to that part. We also
have to let you know that even in the provable
(16:20):
literature of the time, not written by enemies the North Sagas,
the characters that are often interpreted as Vikings are also
depicted as villains in their own hometowns because they will
assault and murder people in their own host communities during
peacetime between raids. So what about the rumors that we're
(16:43):
teasing here about what makes them so beastly? No, we
got to go to Peter Pence, the curator of Danish
prehistory at the National Museum of Denmark. Pete breaks down
the pickle of this in a great interview from a
few years back with Millilitary History.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
According to Pens, Berserkers are mainly known from written medieval
accounts and not from the Vikings themselves. So again we
kind of maybe have another slightly is there an agenda here,
unreliable narrator kind of thing. Pence does make a note
at the primary written source of information on berserkers capital
B the real ones, not the legends, does come from
(17:22):
a guy with a fabulous name.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, fabulous name. His name is Snorri Sterlson.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
But I would I would love it only slightly more
if it was Snorri Snirlsen. But it is Snorri Sterlson,
an Icelandic historian who lived around twelve hundred CE, which
is just after the golden age of vikingdom.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, and our buddy Snory thinks of the berserkers. Yeah,
we got to go first name on that, which I just.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Think he sounds like us.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's like a sleepy boy with a candle, you know,
like and like a little sleep hat kind of clunk
shoeing his way through research.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
It sounds like a Nordic knockoff of Winnie the Pooh
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
There it is, Uh so, Snory, we're gonna use your
first name for this right in. If you have a
problem with.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
That, uh yeah, we'll berserk. You will perserk.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
The uh berserkers in Snorri's writing are a kind of
holy warrior. He writes that Odin's own men went into
battle without coats of mail and acted like mad dogs
or wolves. They bit their shields and were as strong
as bears of bulls. They killed people and neither fire
(18:34):
nor iron affected them. This is called berserker rage.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh yes, he's hulking out. Yeah, we're going to keep
in the in the marbledom of it all. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So okay, So if we go back to modern day
Pence over at the museum, we'll see that, he says,
Snorri is going with two interpretations of berserker. You're either
a fighter who goes to battle like you were saying
Nolan animal skins without armor, or you might be as
strong as a bearer, if not actually a bear yourself.
(19:06):
So the question that becomes, why on earth would anybody
go into battle but naked to.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Freak out the enemy? Man?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right right, you daaled it. You should work with the
National Museum of Denmark because that is one of their guesses.
They thought maybe it was a psyop man. Maybe you
see him running while they're hanging dong and you both
these guys are bonkerstras.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah they are, indeed they are.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Indeed, the museum knows that the nudity might have exactly
been what you said, been a psyop showing disregard for
their own personal safety, like those people that play Skyrim
with naked characters, you know or not not not Sky
elden Ring. But also you could do it with Skyrim.
But yeah, it is. It is definitely a flex, right.
It's saying like I either think I am so such
(20:00):
a badass that no one can touch me, or I'm
an insane person.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Or maybe they were.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Some some ven diagram of those two things as well.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, or maybe they were thinking that they would be
ordering a god of war so they would be willing
sacrifices in the battle.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Now, even Kratos wore some gear though.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Man, that's true, that's true. That's how we got through
so many video games.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Also true. Yeah, I think you know what if you
heard all the hubbub with all these like internet nerds
that are upset that the next God of War is
a woman? No, why are they because they're jerks.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
There's so many real world things to be upset about.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I know, Man, it's so weird.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Okay, well, guys, do your best.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I guess now, you know what, Ben, I'm gonna one
up beyond that one. Do better, do better?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, no, I agree with that. So we we also know,
especially if you've already checked out our episode on Nights
in Shining Armor, we know that there were probably horrid
ekin making practical issues at play, because first, armor is expensive,
it takes so much time from highly skilled laborers, especially
metal armor. And Second, honestly, folks, wearing a bunch of
(21:12):
armor slows you way down. It doesn't fit Viking rating tactics.
So those are about speed and overwhelming force. These are
hit and run jobs. Armor is not great for running,
so maybe it doesn't make sense for him.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
No, and to the point we actually both made in
the Knights and Armor episode that we published earlier this week,
there is a world where the less armor you have,
technically you're you've got a bit of an advantage on
your more heavily armored opponents.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Potentially, Yeah, because you're nimble and they're not. You want
to you, I mean, it's it's like fighting a really
big slow dude. Do you want to wait, make him
slower for them to clank over to you. Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Right, I mean the these berserkers would largely be the
beefiest of the boys too, which means that they would
be even more expensive to armor up.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh yeah, that's a great point too. Uh, here's the
part we've all been righted. Do we talk to drugs
ban Yeah, we got to figure out how they got.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
A rage so they do it, how they get into
hulk moon.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I don't want to put you on the spot too much,
but uh, you don't have to answer this, but what's
the most bloodthirsty and pissed that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
You have ever been? At one time? I took PCP?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
No, I'm kidd I've never done that, but you do
hear that is a drug that comes to mind when
you're thinking about this kind of behavior because there have
been stories of it, like giving people super strength, or
like you know, getting hit by a car and then.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Jumping back up, showing away out of a three story
window from the cops and a ducat of rolling and
then sca dadling on your broken ankle.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Ooh skadatdling Indeed, And Ben, I don't do blood thirsty really.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I really only get mad when.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Other people are being messed with. Frankly, But I can't
think of an exact example. But they didn't have PCP
back then, so what would they have potentially been ingesting,
Ben that would have caused them to hulk out in
this fashion.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, we've got three ideas. We're going to save the
fun one for last. The first is religious zeal. Oh, yeah,
hell of a drug on its own, right, Yeah. Yeah,
Like in the beginning, the idea of these kinds of
warriors was linked to some sort of mysterious cult, an
inner circle of people worshiping Odin.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Being imbued with superpowers.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Just so, it is possible that this famous rage was
a result of intense religious indoctrination in the beginning, and
we see that unfortunately, even today, members of modern cultic
organizations can be manipulately into acts they wouldn't commit otherwise,
like you know, suicide, Bobby, I mean, the more controversial one,
(24:08):
that is my opinion, the least fun We do have
to mention it, nol. What if these guys were bugging
out and hulking out because of mental health issues.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
M entirely possible they could have been identified and as such,
and they're commanding officers, let's call them, looked.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
At it as a feature, not a bug.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, and also a way that they would potentially be
able to use them as cannon fodder because they lacked
the self awareness to literally safeguard themselves.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Exactly. Yeah, It's it's more piece of well thought out speculation.
There isn't much in the way of proofd for this
because obviously we didn't have like the DSM five at
the time, but maybe they were, as you were saying,
hand selected based on recognition of schizotypal conditions. So instead
(24:57):
of executing them for witchcraft or like anthropy like other
societies were doing. This theory argues exactly what you just said.
Viking authorities may have gone, hell, yeah, you're an animal.
We got the perfect job for you.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Ye put you right out in the front.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know how you like running and you're always angry,
hop on the boat. Try not to kill any of
us on the boat, but you know, one or two
is fired.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
But I wonder if there was any friendly berserker behavior
tons apparently.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
To this parent if you depending on the legends, you.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Know what I mean, friendly fire, yeah, without fire, friendly smash.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
And they were like, well, that's what he got for
standing in front of us.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Ven, that's why don't stand in front of you. Don't
do it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So we got to get to the third most exciting theory,
which I know we are privately the personally the most
excited about drugs. Okay, noelque break down the drug theory
for us for sure.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
I mean, I think we've we've probably trickled a little
bit of it throughout the episode, but the idea was
that berserkers were often just regular folks, regular Viking warrior
raider types, which we know wouldn't be compared to a
normal citizen regular at all, But their ferocity really only
came into play once they ingested a particular kind of
(26:18):
hallucinogen or a psychoactive substance, often described as a combination
of herbs and mushrooms that to this day a lot
of speculation about and I know we've talked about this
on stuff they don't want you to know, and got
into some specifics about what these substances might have been.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, what they could have been, right, because it's not
plausible by any means, but it is just possible because
we know, like in the excellent film of the north Man,
we know that there were rituals involving ingesting substances, right,
the shamanistic vulva did that. So there's historical precedent in
(26:56):
Viking communities. But in a way, is that not like
is that not similar to say, twentieth century Americans had
access to LSD and cocaine. Therefore all marines were always
on acid and cocaine.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Well, for sure, it's definitely a bit of a leap.
But you know, we do, of course have examples of
military use of stimulants. For example, it is something that
can give folks an edge, whether it be for sleep
deprivation or just making you more aggressive. You know, we
(27:33):
know that the Nazis were quite fond of their their stimulants.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
Well, to jump in here real quick, I'm keeping this,
going to keep this very anonymous, but I have a
I have a friend of mine who was who has
done you know, sensitive military operations, and he was an officer,
and he talked about me about the presence of how
prevalent methmphetamines are in special operations, and he's just kind
(27:57):
of like, part of me is like, man, this is
with part of me is like, these guys are pretty terrifying.
They want to be like raised or focused while they're
doing this stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Absolutely, like, yeah, absolutely, the use of stimulants is as
old as war, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
But at the same time, to Max's point, you would
want it to sharpen you up, not make you an
unhinged you know, madman.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
You'd still want to be an asset, right because otherwise
you're useless to the operations. So with all this stuff
in mind, honestly, in our opinion, religious fervor seems to
be the most plausible consideration, primarily because fighting berserker style
(28:44):
might have been a one off thing for some of
these combatants. It may have been more like what we
could call an audition or a gang initiation. Because if
you survive and people are singing your praises and they're like,
this guy was awesome, running point, you've earned your stripe.
You become kind of a special forces or elite person.
(29:04):
So you get better job opportunities, right, you get better
going gigs. You can maybe become a bodyguard for the
political class. That's why things like, Okay, I don't love
this name, but there was a dude named King Harold
fine hair.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's a fun one. That's a weird one, Like, what
is it King Harold receding hairline.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, I don't know if it meant that he was
balding or his hair was thinning, or if it meant
that he just had really great claireal herbal Essence's hair.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, lustrous and voluminous.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah, maybe he was just always kind of in the wind.
Shaking his long hair. Maybe, but what seems most likely
is that something like Baserka exists or existed, we should say.
And they were mainly young men seeking wealth and status.
And if they could survive a dangerous raid, they were
(30:00):
get out of the game, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
They would buy the.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Farm, they would marry the girl. They would have a peaceful, much.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Longer life for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And this is where we're gonna leave it today, folks. Again,
if you want a different look at this, check out
our episode on stuff they don't want you to know.
If you haven't checked out our episode on Knights and
Shining Armor, please do give that a gander on your
podcast platform of choice. I've been our research associate for today.
Big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams, as
(30:31):
well as his anonymous and very experienced friend.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Indeed, huge thanks to Christopher Hasciotis and Eve's Jeffcoates here
in spirit, Alex Williams who composed our.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Theme, Jonathan Strickland aka the quist A, j Bahamas, Jacob's Doctor,
Rachel big Spinach, Lance and Ben.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
You know what. I've said it before and I'll say
it again.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Huge thanks to you and an excellent job on the
berserk research you did.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
On this one.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Thanks Man, and I thought we did a really good
job navigating that sensitive drug conversation.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I think so too.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Not so much with the DOM conversation, but Reord, we
do our level best.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, I can't win the wall.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
We'll see you next, Tie Polks.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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