Berserkers: Violent Viking Villains, Unverified

Summary

Ridiculous History Podcast Summary

Episode: Berserkers: Violent Viking Villains, Unverified

Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Released: June 25, 2026
Podcast: Ridiculous History by iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the legend and history of the Berserkers—infamous Viking warriors believed to have fought in a wild, trance-like fury. Ben and Noel sift through myth, misinterpretation, and the facts (and lack thereof) that fuel Berserker lore, exploring why they remain such enduring “villain” figures in both historical text and popular imagination. The episode leans into the comedic, irreverent style of the hosts while genuinely probing into the plausibility and origins of the Berserkers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mythos of the Berserkers

• Berserkers are described as the most fearsome subset of Viking warriors—“dangerous, unhinged, touched by gods or possessed by evil spirits” ([02:45], Ben Bowlin).
• They were so frightening that even fellow Vikings were wary of them.

2. Viking Stereotypes Explored

• The familiar “barbarian” image: big, hairy, horned helmets, raiding and enslaving, party-hard rituals like the “blood eagle” ([01:14–01:53], Ben).
• Many stereotypes originate from rivals and later chroniclers, not from Vikings themselves. Viking depiction is "at least some trash-talking from their regional rivals" ([10:19], Ben).

3. Etymology and Actual Viking Life

• The word “Viking” possibly derives from Old Norse “vikingr” (pirate/raider) or perhaps even older Frisian and Old English terms related to “village” ([07:24–08:40], Ben & Noel).
• Vikings: not only warriors but also farmers, fishermen, traders, and colonists. “Most Vikings were more like young college bros on their gap year, and they were trying to get rich before they settled down” ([18:54], Ben).

4. The Berserker: Fact vs. Legend

• Literal translation: “bear-shirt” (possibly ‘bear-skin’ or ‘bare-chested’); basis for the term “going berserk” ([19:58–20:32], Noel).
• Debate over what animals provided the pelts—bear, wolf, or myth? Animal pelts signaled otherworldliness. Connection drawn to the werewolf legends of Europe ([22:12], Ben).

5. Exaggeration, Propaganda, and Pop Culture

• The horned helmet is a 19th-century invention, not historical: “It probably started based around an illustration from an 1825 edition of...Frithiof’s Saga… and was injected into popular culture through Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle” ([12:01–12:43], Noel).
• The mythologizing continued via opera and pop culture—fat ladies in horned hats, etc.

6. Berserker Behavior: Strategy or Psychosis?

• Running into battle (sometimes naked or barely clothed), howling, attacking friend and foe alike—possibly a psychological intimidation tactic (“maybe it was a psyop” – [27:11], Ben).
• Lack of armor: not just tradition but practical (armor was expensive, heavy, and slowed raiders down) ([28:34–29:36], Ben & Noel).

7. Theories on Berserker Rage

a. Religious Fervor

• Berserker rage possibly a result of fervent, cult-like worship of Odin. “Religious zeal. Oh, yeah. A hell of a drug on its own, right?” ([31:21], Noel).
• Berserkers as Odin’s “own men”, believed to be protected or chosen ([26:06], Ben citing Snorri Sturlson).

b. Mental Health Hypothesis

• Some believe Berserkers were individuals with undiagnosed mental health issues (e.g. schizotypal conditions) selected as warriors: “Their commanding officers… looked at it as a feature, not a bug” ([32:12], Noel).

c. Psychoactive Substances (“Drugs!”)

• The famous theory: Berserkers took psychoactive substances (herbs, mushrooms, etc.), inducing trance or rage ([30:06–30:55], Ben & Noel).
• Some historical precedent (shamanistic rituals), but methodologically questionable.
• Modern analogy: “Is that not similar to saying 20th-century Americans had access to LSD and cocaine, therefore all Marines were always on acid and cocaine?” ([34:29], Ben).

d. Social/Economic Factors

• Joining a Berserker raid as an "initiation" or to improve social standing; young men seeking wealth, status, and, if they survived, peaceful retirement ([37:30], Ben).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Can you imagine…in our crew, we have this one group of fighters that even frighten us…These are the Berserkers.” (Ben, [02:45])
• "The village people. It's fun to raid at the YMCA." (Ben, joking about the etymology, [08:40])
• “Not every Norse person is a Viking. Like, not every puzzle is a maze.” (Ben, [18:54])
• “Their haters wrote the history and embellished and exaggerated it just like a codpiece. But yeah, there was a D under there.” (Ben, [11:07])
• “Berserkers are mainly known from written medieval accounts and not from the Vikings themselves.” (Noel, [24:54])
• “[Snorri Sturlson] 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 or bulls. They killed people and neither fire nor iron affected them. This is called berserker rage.” (Ben, [26:06])
• “To freak out the enemy, man.” (Noel, explaining nudity as psychological warfare, [27:07])
• “Religious zeal…a hell of a drug on its own, right?” (Noel, [31:21])
• “Maybe they were, as you were saying, hand-selected based on recognition of schizotypal conditions. So instead of executing them for witchcraft… Viking authorities may have gone, hell yeah, you’re an animal. We got the perfect job for you.” (Ben, [32:30])
• On drugs: “The idea was that Berserkers were often just regular folks… their ferocity really only came into play once they ingested a particular kind of hallucinogen or a psychoactive substance often described as a combination of herbs and mushrooms.” (Noel, [33:50])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:40–02:45] – Setting the scene: Viking stereotypes and Berserker intro
• [06:18–07:24] – Etymology of “Viking” & cultural misunderstandings
• [10:17–11:07] – Viking image shaped by “haters”, not reality
• [12:01–12:43] – Horned helmet myth debunked
• [19:58–22:12] – Berserker literal meaning & animal pelt lore
• [23:09–24:54] – Superhuman strengths, historical sources (Snorri Sturlson)
• [26:06–27:11] – What berserker rage meant in medieval writings
• [28:34–29:36] – Practical reasons for little/no armor
• [30:06–31:21] – On the possibility of psychoactive substances
• [31:21–33:50] – The three main theories for berserker rage: religious, mental health, drugs
• [35:06–36:15] – Modern analogies; military use of stimulants
• [37:30–end] – Final thoughts: Berserkers as social climbers/elite warriors

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The legend of the Berserkers straddles the line between terrifying reality and overblown myth, inflamed by both historical enemies and later Victorian artists and performers.
• Most evidence for Berserkers comes from accounts written much later, adding distortion.
• The most plausible explanations for their “rage” likely include religious fervor, select mental health factors, and ritualistic but not necessarily combat-use of psychoactive drugs.
• Ultimately, Berserkers, if they did exist as described, were extreme products of their environment: young men seeking status and survival in a harsh world—while scaring their friends and enemies alike.

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Additional Resources

• For a different perspective, check out the sister show episode on Berserkers at "Stuff They Don't Want You to Know."
• The episode also calls back to the recent "Knights in Shining Armor" episode for parallels in myth and reality about warriors in history.

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(Summary compiled by AI from the Ridiculous History episode transcript. All quotes and timestamps are taken directly from the episode for reference.)

Transcript

[Ben Bullen]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to 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, Mr. Max Williams.

[Noel Brown]

Max the Viking king. Wait, hold on. What's that thing where they pull your lungs out your back?

[Ben Bullen]

Eagle blood. Eagle blood.

[Noel Brown]

Eagle. Max the blood Eagle Williams.

[Unknown Guest]

Sorry.

[Noel Brown]

That was dark.

[Ben Bullen]

And yeah, it's great if. If you're like us, us being Noel Brown and Ben Bullen, you're a fan of historical propaganda, prestige television, like the creatively named amazing show Vikings, or countless films, which I think depicts a place

[Noel Brown]

we already, at a certain point, if I'm not mistaken.

[Ben Bullen]

It does. It does. We already know the typical image of these Reavers, right, Noel? 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.

[Unknown Guest]

They.

[Ben Bullen]

They overwhelm people like a blitzkrieg force, and they kill or enslave everybody. They take whatever they can carry back on their ships. They go 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?

[Noel Brown]

Dark stuff, but, you know, exciting. The stuff of legend, the stuff of lore, and often. What's that movie with Skarsgard recently that did a fine job of depict Northman. The Northman. Yes, indeed.

[Ben Bullen]

Yes, beautiful. Just rewatch that actually in preparation for this. And Noel, there's something that stood out to us so much that we did an episode similar to this on our sister show. 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 being Vikings? And in our crew, 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 by evil spirits. We wonder whether they are even human at all. These are the Berserkers.

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[Noel Brown]

My love for you is like a truck berserker. Would you. Then the next line. I can't say on the pod, but the following line is, My love for you is ticking clock berserker. Would you like to smoke some pot Berserker. Sorry, it's Kevin Smith. Fictional song from Clerks, but the Berserk band. First of all, let's just get this out of the way. Were these big, burly, naked guys that ate a lot of drugs and scared people on the battlefield?

[Ben Bullen]

Let's get to it. The answer is maybe. Okay, we'll see.

[Unknown Guest]

We'll see.

[Noel Brown]

There were pelts involved too, right? I think there were some animal pelts involved, too.

[Ben Bullen]

That's what the historians are still arguing about thousands of years after the fact. We know that. Vikings. Yeah, right. And congrats to everybody writing their dissertation. So 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, Noel, we don't really know where the word Viking comes from.

[Unknown Guest]

That's true.

[Noel Brown]

Which is odd. You know, we're such etymology fans. But the old Norse word vikingjir 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 word's origin is actually from Old English vaising or wissing. And the old Frisian word whizzing. It makes me think of wizard powers. It makes me think of peeing. Wait a minute. On the electric fence. Don't do it. Don't do it. And who are the Frisians? Man, they sound fun.

[Ben Bullen]

I'm sure everybody back then was super fun and smelled super great. The reason we like Wiesin or Wiesin or Wiesin is because both of those words are almost 300 years older than the Old Norse word Vikingr. And those two words, the Frisian and the Old English, they derive from vic, spelled W I C, relating to the Latin vikas, meaning village or habitation. So we have decided on ridiculous history that Viking as a word means the village people. It's fun to read at the ymca.

[Noel Brown]

That's amazing.

[Ben Bullen]

The village people.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, Ben and I was doing a little digging into Frisbees. It's so good. It's so good. I was doing a little digging into the Frisian people and a codex of law called the Lex Frisonium, which I just think is fun.

[Ben Bullen]

Beautiful. We should get.

[Noel Brown]

They were master fishermen, they were really good at dike building, 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 were, were super innovative.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, especially when they weren't getting raided by these Mad Max level Monstrous Wars.

[Noel Brown]

What a downer.

[Ben Bullen]

It's weird because as our pal Jabari 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 play in the 8th century to about the late 1000s or so, the Vikings are a huge expansion force. They travel all the way from the Mediterranean to North Africa, the Middle east to Newfoundland in Canada, which they called Vinland. That makes them, by the way, so far as history knows, 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, and said, ah, we're going to get our butts kicked if we try to fight these guys.

[Noel Brown]

That's not to poke that particular bear. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

Best 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 from their regional rivals.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, yeah. As is often the case 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 to stories about the Knights Templar and the Hashashim, they were maligned oftentimes, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a seed of truth to some of these more outlandish tales.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, their haters wrote the history and embellished and exaggerated it just like a COD piece. But yeah, there was a D under there.

[Noel Brown]

There always is. There always is.

[Ben Bullen]

All right, we'll keep it. Apologies to all the substitute teachers tuning in. So we know that the Vikings did have literacy. They did make inscriptions via runes. 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 don't make a lot of sense in realistic combat. And I think you, as a former WE German boy, would love that. We found why horned helmets became a thing.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. They probably started based around an illustration from an 1825 edition of a piece of Nordic lore. Jesus is a tough one. Frithiof. Sounds like I got a list, but that's how it's spelled. Frithiof's saga. And then of course this myth and this tale and collection of myths was interpreted and injected into the neck of popular culture through Richard 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 mezzo soprano played one of the valkyries in several multiple movies.

[Drink Champs Host]

No way.

[Ben Bullen]

That's awesome, dude.

[Noel Brown]

Yep. Ho yo to hoa.

[Ben Bullen]

That's awesome. We know that when we see Wagner's Ring cycle get interpreted over and over again. There is person responsible for this horned helmet idea. It's Carl Eel Doppler. This is a costume designer from 1876 and had a flair for the dramatic way more than a flare for historical accuracy. So that's where it comes from. Another stereotype. Noel. Were these guys just sewing chaos for the halibut? For the heck of it?

[Noel Brown]

Just for the yell they get just for the smell of it.

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[Noel Brown]

The more you get comfortable with someone, the more their real self comes out. They're gonna be gross.

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[Noel Brown]

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 bad apples. I imagine within the Vikings. They didn't just wake up, though. No, exactly to your point, Ben. They didn't just wake up one day and randomly decide that they were gonna be the agents of chaos. There were multiple, multiple factors that led to the spread of this kind of behavior.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noel Brown]

This conquering, pillaging behavior, or at least, you know, a version of it.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, absolutely. Because Vikings were also farmers. They weren't always outraiding 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 in several cases did, starve to death, like, entire areas. So not every Norse person is a Viking. Like, not every puzzle is a maze. 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, 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.

[Unknown Guest]

Oh, for sure.

[Ben Bullen]

By far, the most infamous of the killers are the Berserker.

[Noel Brown]

The Berserker is the old Norse Berserkers, the legend of the old Norse berserkers, a word that roughly translates to bear, shirt, and now 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 be bear, like, like the creature. Others thought that it meant bear, as in no shirt at all. B, A, R, E or bare chested.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah. Tops off. Party time. And it's. It's weird because like. Like you were teasing earlier in the stories, these strange, implacable, unstoppable warriors are running into battle naked, save for, like a bearskin cloak. And they're howling like beasts. They're attacking not just their victims or their foes, but also anybody who's in their way. So if you believe the legends, these are early versions of things like suicide bombers or kamikaze divine wind. They're living weapons. They have no regard for their own personal safety, let alone anybody else's. I mean, come on, right? No way.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, but way.

[Ben Bullen]

But yes, way way.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah. I'm picturing Samson from the 28 Years later movies. Just like, you know, big giant hanging dong and just running at you, screaming, and then ripping off heads. You know, I.

[Ben Bullen]

Like 28 years later.

[Noel Brown]

Maybe not that. Maybe that is a little bit. You know, it's fun to think about. But no, not quite that. But of course, quite something. Berserkers were very much a real thing, as in there were definitely Vik warriors, of course. But 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 a bear. Well, maybe no skivvies at all. Commando or under some sort of pelt, a bear skin. Even if we think they can consider that that might be true. People also can't quite agree on whether it was a bearskin or wolf skin or some other type of animal hive.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, 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 resurgence of werewolf legends in Europe. By the way, if you haven't seen Brotherhood of the Wolf, check it out. No spoilers.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Unrelated to this story, but we definitely did an episode on the Beast of Gavaldan. I believe that that was based on.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, we did, didn't we?

[Noel Brown]

We sure did. Yeah. There was some sort of mythical beasts plaguing the French countryside and it had to be stopped. 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 to it. It's really, really cool.

[Ben Bullen]

Some Mortal Kombat 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.

[Noel Brown]

You like that one? Yeah, I know, I remember. Bucky's the one with like the robot arm, right?

[Ben Bullen]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Captain America's sidekick who gets spoilers, folks. Three, two, one. Kidnapped by the Soviets and then turned into a brainwashed.

[Noel Brown]

Crushed like a Manchurian Candidate almost.

[Questlove]

Right.

[Ben Bullen]

Just so, yeah. So the Berserkers are depicted as having almost superhuman levels of physical ability, but definitely not mental ability.

[Noel Brown]

Well, and that comes from. Or at least some speculation around that that I think is also represented in that movie, the Northman, is this idea that they were taking some psychoactive substances to make them, you know, kind of unhinged.

[Ben Bullen]

And we've got to get to that part. We also have to let you know that even in the provable literature of the time, not written by enemies, the Norse 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 teasing here about what makes them so beastly? Noel, we gotta 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 military history.

[Noel Brown]

According to Pence, berserkers are mainly known from written medieval accounts and not from the Vikings themselves. So again, we kind of maybe have an 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 a guy with a fabulous name. Yeah, fabulous name. His name is Snorri Sturlson. But I would love it only slightly more if it was Snorri Snurlson. But it is Snorri Sturlson, an Icelandic historian who lived around 1200 CE, which is just after the golden age of Vikingdom.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, and our buddy Snorri thinks of the Berserkers. Yeah, we gotta go. First name on that one.

[Noel Brown]

I just think he sounds like a sleepy boy with a candle, you know, and like a little sleep hat kind of honk shooing his way through his research.

[Unknown Guest]

It sounds like a Nordic knockoff of Winnie the Pooh a little bit.

[Ben Bullen]

There it is. So, Snorri, we're gonna use your first name for this right in. If you have a problem with that, Snorri.

[Noel Brown]

Come at us, Snorri. We'll berserk you.

[Ben Bullen]

We'll berserk. 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 or bulls. They killed people and neither fire nor iron affected them. This is called berserker rage.

[Noel Brown]

Ooh, yes. Hulking out if we're gonna keep in the marveldom of it.

[Apple Card Advertiser]

Right all.

[Questlove]

Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

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. And you might be as strong as a bear, if not actually a bear yourself. So the question that becomes, why on earth would anybody go into battle but naked?

[Noel Brown]

To freak out the enemy man.

[Ben Bullen]

Right, right. You nailed it. You should work with the National Museum of Denmark, because that is one of their guesses. They thought maybe it was a psyop.

[Noel Brown]

It's a flex, man.

[Ben Bullen]

Maybe you see them running while they're hanging dong and you Go. These guys are bonkers. Bonkers.

[Questlove]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

They are indeed. They are indeed. The museum knows that the nudity might have exactly been what you been. A psyop showing disregard for their own personal safety. Like those people that play Skyrim with naked characters. Or not Skyrim, Elden Ring. But also, you could do it with Skyrim. But yeah, it is definitely a flex, right? It's saying, like, I either think I am such a badass that no one can touch me, or I'm an insane person.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Or maybe they were some Venn diagram of those two things is.

[Ben Bullen]

Well, yeah. Or maybe they were thinking that they would be honoring a God of war so they would be willing sacrifices in the battle.

[Noel Brown]

I know. Even Kratos wore some gear, though, man.

[Ben Bullen]

That's true. That's true. That's how he got through so many video games.

[Noel Brown]

Also true. Yeah, I think. You know what? Have you heard all the hubbub with all these, like, Internet nerds that are upset that the next God of war is a woman?

[Ben Bullen]

No.

[Noel Brown]

Why? Why are they? Because they're jerks.

[Ben Bullen]

There's so many real world things to be upset about.

[Noel Brown]

I know, man. Yeah, it's so weird.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, well, guys, do your best, I guess.

[Noel Brown]

No, you know what, Ben? I'm going to one up you on that one.

[Ben Bullen]

Do better. Do better. Yeah, no, I agree with that. So we also know, especially if you've already checked out our episode on Knights in Shining Armor, we know that there were probably hard economic and 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 armor slows you way down. It doesn't fit. Viking rating tactics, 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 them.

[Noel Brown]

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've got a bit of an advantage on your more heavily armored opponents. Potentially.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Because you're nimble and they're not. You want to. I mean, 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, right.

[Noel Brown]

I mean, these berserkers would largely be the beefiest of the boys too, which means that they would be even more expensive to armor up.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yeah, that's a great point, too. Here's the part we've all been waiting.

[Noel Brown]

Can we talk? The drugs ban?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, we got. We got to figure out how they got enraged so they do it.

[Noel Brown]

How'd they get into Hulk mode?

[Ben Bullen]

I don't want to put you on the spot too much, but you don't have to answer this, but what's the most bloodthirsty and pissed that you have ever been at?

[Noel Brown]

One time I took pcp. No, I'm kidding. 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 jumping back up, jumping away

[Ben Bullen]

out of a three story window from the cops and then ducking and rolling and then skedaddling on your broken ankle.

[Noel Brown]

Ooh, skedaddling indeed. And Ben, I don't do bloodthirsty. Really. I really only get mad when 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?

[Questlove]

Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

We've got three ideas. We're gonna save the fun one for last. The first is religious zeal.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, yeah. A hell of a drug on its own, right?

[Ben Bullen]

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,

[Noel Brown]

being imbued with superpowers.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. 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 manipulated into acts they wouldn't commit otherwise, like, you know, suicide bombing. I mean, the more controversial one, that is, in my opinion, the least fun. We do have to mention it, Noel. What if these guys were bugging out and hulking out because of mental health issues?

[Noel Brown]

Entirely possible they could have been identified as such. And their commanding officers, let's call them, looked at it as a feature, not a bug.

[Unknown Guest]

Bug.

[Noel Brown]

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.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. Yeah. It's more a piece of well thought out speculation. There isn't much in the way of proof for this because obviously we didn't have the DSM5 at the time, but maybe they were, as you were saying, hand selected based on recognition of schizotypal. Conditions. So instead of executing them for witchcraft, craft or lycanthropy 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.

[Noel Brown]

Yep. Put you right out in the front.

[Ben Bullen]

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 fine.

[Noel Brown]

That's a good point, Ben. I wonder if there was any friendly, berserk behavior.

[Ben Bullen]

Tons, apparently to this. Apparently, if you. Depending on the legends, you know what I mean?

[Noel Brown]

Friendly fire.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Without fire. Friendly smash.

[Ben Bullen]

And they were like, well, that's what he got for standing in front of Sven.

[Noel Brown]

That's why Sven, don't stand in front of me. Don't do it.

[Ben Bullen]

So we gotta get to the third most exciting theory, which I know we are privately, the personally the most excited about drugs. Okay, Noel, can you break down the drug theory for us?

[SOFI Advertiser]

For sure.

[Noel Brown]

I mean, I think 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, you 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 hallucinogen or a psychoactive substance often 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.

[Ben Bullen]

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 the Northman, we know that there were rituals involving ingesting substances. Right. The shamanistic vulva did that. So there's historical precedent in Viking communities. But in a way, is that not similar to saying 20th century Americans had access to LSD and cocaine, therefore all Marines were always on acid and cocaine.

[Noel Brown]

Well, for sure, it's definitely a bit of a leap, but we do you, 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. We know that the Nazis were quite fond of their stimulants.

[Unknown Guest]

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 in, who has done, you know, sensitive military operations, and he was an officer, and he would talk about me, about the presence of, like, how prevalent methamphetamines are.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

In special operations. And he's just kind of like, part of me is like, man, this is wrong. When part of me is like, these guys are pretty terrifying. They want to be like razor focused while they're doing this stuff.

[Noel Brown]

Absolutely.

[Ben Bullen]

Like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It. The use of stimulants is as old as war.

[Noel Brown]

But at the same time, to Max's point, you would want it to sharpen you up, not make you an unhinged madman.

[Ben Bullen]

You'd still want to be an asset. Right. Because otherwise you're useless to the operation. 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 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 stripes. You become kind of a special forces or elite person. So you get better job opportunities, right? You get better gigs. You could 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 Harald. Fine hair.

[Noel Brown]

That's a fun one.

[Ben Bullen]

That's a weird one.

[Noel Brown]

Like, what is it? King Harald, Receding hairline.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

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 Clairol Herbal Essences hair.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Lustrous and voluminous.

[Ben Bullen]

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 Berserker exist or existed, we should say. And they were mainly young men seeking wealth and status. And if they could survive a dangerous raid, they would get out of the game. You know what I mean? They would buy the farm, they would marry the girl. They would have a. A peaceful, much longer life for sure. 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 in 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 Mr. Max Williams as well as well as his anonymous and very experienced friend indeed.

[Noel Brown]

Huge thanks to Christopher Haciotes and Eve's Jeffcoats here in spirit, Alex Williams who composed our theme.

[Ben Bullen]

Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister AJ Bahamas Jacobs, Dr. Rachel Big Spinach Lance and Ben.

[Noel Brown]

You know what, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Huge thanks to you and excellent job on the berserk research you did on this one.

[Ben Bullen]

Aw, thanks man. And I thought we did a really good job navigating that sensitive drug conversation.

[Noel Brown]

I think so too. Not so much with the Dom conversation, but we do our level best.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, I can't win them all.

[Noel Brown]

See you next time folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Unknown Guest]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.