Topic summary
Berserkers
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Berserker.
Attestations
Berserkers appear prominently in a multitude of other sagas and poems. Many earlier sagas portrayed berserkers as bodyguards, elite soldiers, and champions of kings. This image would change as time passed and sagas would begin to describe berserkers as boasters rather than heroes, and as ravenous men who loot, plunder, and kill indiscriminately. Within the sagas, Berserkers can be narrowed down to four different types. The King's Berserkr, the Hall-Challenging Berserkr, the Hólmgangumaðr, and the Viking Berserkr. Later, by Christian interpreters, the berserker was viewed as a "heathen devil".