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Chesspiece (Rook equivalent) from Scotland, depicting a Norse berserker biting his shield, 12th century AD
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this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_chessmen
Viking berserkers are often described as biting their shields out of battle madness and fury in Norse accounts.
Are they Vikings, or are they rodents?
My sign's Thor's hammer
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Praying for an omen
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
I'm just a Norse guy who likes the taste of shields.
Didn't they also used to take mushrooms before battles in some cases?
Another popular "theory" is that they would coat their shields in mushroom, ( either, fly agaric or liberty caps, depending on who you talk to) and bite them in battle to re-up their trip
Probably no.
We currently have no concrete evidence to how the berserkers worked themselves up into such a frenzy, with mushrooms being just one of many theories. The myth that they used mushrooms comes from several places, one of its biggest factors being that other warriors from different cultures did use mushrooms (the Aztecs are one culture that did so I believe) before or during battle.
I was under the impression that it was good old fashioned battle PTSD. Iirc, berserkers were reported to sometimes attack anyone nearby in their frenzy, not just the enemy faction.