"Making Viking units" Topic

So I gather that vikings did not form any type of uniqe units.

I orderd a bunch of peter pigs.

A few armord sword figures, a few armord dane axe figures, lots of armord spear, lots of unarmord spear, and a few unarmord one had axe.

Just what kind of units should I make? This is for black powder.

Should I put the unarmord in one unit and armord in another.

Should all the armord spear be in one unit, and another mix of sword and dane axe?

I gather the better armored/equipped guys would be in the front, while the unarmored hanger-ons would be in the back. WAB actually had a rule for this in the Anglo-Saxon & IIRC Viking lists(combined formation), where the Huskarls/Housecarls would form the first rank and the Bondir/Fyrd subsequent ranks.

Damon.

Black Powder for vikings? Just had to ask.

The shield wall was the principle form of combat in that region during that time. A battle came down to maintaining your own shield wall, while at the same time, defeating your opponent's.

It was not that imaginative, but it was more or less effective. Also of note, the man on the right of the wall would have to be among the strongest and best warrior, as they had no protection on their right, and rolling a flank was one way to defeat a shield wall.

Spears were probably the most common, and often most effective. If you wanted a realistic looking unit, I would mix them a bit, but have some units with more of one type of weapon. Also, I would model a shield wall by putting the figures with overlapping, or nearly overlapping shields if possible.

Good luck and have fun!

The short answer is pretty much what Garand said, as far as I have read. Strong armor, shield, and weapon (spear, short axe, seax, lang seax, sword etc) in the front, spear in the second rank, as well as great axes, and everyone in the rear needed to be ready to fill a hole in the shield wall.

Sorry ment Hail Caesar.

So basicly armord up front, unarmord back.

Hail Caesar wants vikings in 4 deep formation(representing anything from 8 to 16 ranks) but who deep was a shieldwall?

How deep was a Shieldwall? I guess it would depend on how many men you had, how many men the enemy had, and how much ground you wanted to occupy!

On the subject of units. A Shieldwall would probably be made up of groups of warriors rather than formal units. A group would be either a lord and his followers or maybe a kin group. Organisation was on a much more personal basis than we are familiar with today. Kit was not really a factor but the best equipped and most experienced warriors would likely have ended up in the front!

It was a team effort and , in England or France, organised by boats crews. because th at is how they arrived. So you would have groups of 30 to 100 organised around the captain, bosun equivalent, helmsman etc. The front rank guys have spear and shield, then axes and shields, then going backwards you have javelins and bows. It is logical that the best armoured are in front, but what is key is that the leader has a tight defensive group. So rather than one long wall of shields it is a series of clumps close together. I don't imagine that several thousand Vikings operated without some substructure to theirforces, but what we hear of in terms of major units implies two, three or perhaps fouour groupings of the smaller units.

As I said, bows at the back, but Zi would not preclude bows being able to filter forwards if the enemy stood off.

The a rmies of Cnut and Sweyn and Harald H in 1000AD are different, because they wre raised by lords who bring along followings. That makes it likely that some of the clumps were bigger.
Levy armies would be deployed by district. That implies bigger units, though the raising of men by village might still result in clumps of 50 or so.
The teamwork element is that they have a job to do. They defend the leader and try to create a gap in the enemt line that can be pushed into. I suggest that the couple of archers and the spear throwers in each group aim at enemy unit leaders and the core of each crew pushes towards the nearest enemy leader The Viking leader goes for his main opponent, protected by the weapon men around him.
If you are a king or Jarl, you might have some berserks, say 1-12 who are released to disrupt the enemy and the rest of the group follows them in.
Remember, the larger formations are composed of tight all arms groups of
30-100. The bigger a cheese you are the bigger your group and those groups will go for the opposing enemy leaders and their comitatus/kinship group.

Anglo-Saxon England had a traditional order of eminence when forming battle lines. All I know about this is that men from Kent led out. Why, who knows. But the point is that any combined army from shires/districts, whathaveyou, added to the king's men and any earldoms present, etc., will know beforehand where in the line they are expected to form up. On the spot this could be and most likely was adjusted to accommodate actual conditions resulting from the muster, but at least a precedence was working in everyone's minds. From this arranging of themselves, the commander would split his army into two or more "battles". For instance at Hastings the English army was in the three standard divisions of two wings and a center, with possibly a bodyguard of unknown size around the king that could function as a separate "command group". The Norman army was as different from its Viking origins as you can get, with separate units in each of the three battles of marksmen, infantry and cavalry. Or at least nine distinct command groups, much more flexible than the English army. The English army and contemporary "Vikings" were almost identical in their tactical order traditions, which is to be expected, since they had been fighting and responding to each other for c. two hundred years….

As has been written, Viking leaders would have gathered their troops around them and fought with those they knew. There is no reliable evidence to support anything more organised than a line of troops with shields. Suggesting that they put the spearmen in the front rank, axemen in the second rank, etc is speculation. It is also worth pointing out that most axes that have been found are one-handed and not fearsome two-handed weapons. In terms of weaponry and equipment, the period within the Viking Age that you are modelling will determine the mix of weapons with two-handed axes only appearing later. I suggest building your units from mixed units comprising some armoured and some unarmoured chaps but these would then be subsumed into larger formations. Weaponry should be predominantly spears and one-handed axes with some swords. Chaps with swords would probably have spears too. Some troops would have bows but they probably used melee weapons when the battle lines clashed and only really used their bows in the preparatory engagement. There does not appear to have been any use of archers as skirmishers in the classical sense. Because of the lack of evidence for Viking Age deployment, I suggest setting your units up in what looks 'Viking' to you, taking on board the advice given in this thread.

Regarding berserkers, they were not psycho nutters who were unleashed on the enemy at the start of the fight. This view of them is outdated and fails to recognise recent research into their nature and the nature of Viking Age warfare. They were most likely elite warriors in a lord's personal bodyguard and would have fought just like any other Viking, but better. Vendel period archaeological evidence indicates that the leaders of warbands themselves may have been part of this group. They may have worn bearskins, although there is a solid argument for the idea that bear masks and skins were only worn for ritual activities. They certainly did not fight naked in battle.

In terms of how Vikings fought battles, previous comments about numbers, ground to be covered and the size of the enemy force are all valid. The use of a 'three battle' model of deployment, like medieval European armies, also seems likely in the case of larger Viking armies.

Well there is evidence that Vikings had rather more substructure than wukong thinks and that weaponry had more specialist effect than he suggests. For example, a recent piece of work by a Scandinavian academic that suggests that the spread of large axes had a relationship to the mode of warfare. In one source a regional group is praised fir its skill and effect at archery in a battle and surely that is more than a matter of a few guys using a secondary bow. So having a unit with a high proportion of bows is fair enough.
Vikings also used slings. Now I challenge anyone to say that does not indicate skirmishers. Of course there are likely to have been sone out in open order with bows and some with javelins. These are precisely the sort of troops that would only get mentioned by accident because they do not have a major impact on battles.
Similarly with berserks. Saga evidence suggests that berserk wear no body armour, do bite shields (c.f. that interesting Lewes chessman) .and do operate in groups.
According to Egils Saga, at Brunanburh, Thorolf the Icelander ' became so berserk that he swung his shield round to his back and took his spear in both hands. He ran forward, striking or thrusting on both sides. Men sprang away in all directions, but he killed many….'
I don't think that is the action of an ordinary grunt in Wukong's rather boring shield wall. Also, of course , if you have people in the shieldwall who are going to advance beyond it you have to have a structure to follow them up.
Berserks also seem to have been used in groups, Harald Fairhair having twelve in the bow of his boat.
With Vikings you have a bit if choice Gunfreak. You can either go for the minimalist interpretation of Wukong, or you can look at the richness of some of the literary sources and use that. In this case the literary tradition has something to be said for it because the rather drier interpretation from the historical sources is so thin.

Sagas are literature, not history.More in common with the History channel version of Vikings rather than the reality.They give you an idea of how quite a few generations reomved from the events see those events. King Harald's saga is good example of how mixed up they can be.

a recent piece of work by a Scandinavian academic

Which academic is this? I would be interested in reading that article.

Vikings also used slings.

What is the evidence for their use in battle? Saga evidence indicates their use in skirmishes but none of it points to their use in massed battles. Descriptions of battles in Old Norse literature are sufficiently stylised with their opening round of missile fire followed by a clash of arms, and the vocabulary sufficiently generic, that it is not possible to state precisely how things were conducted based on them. It is also highly likely that we are reading stylised representations of contemporary warfare, rather than descriptions of Viking Age warfare.

Similarly with berserks. Saga evidence suggests that berserk wear no body armour, do bite shields (c.f. that interesting Lewes chessman) and do operate in groups.

Starting with the last point, yes, I agree that they operated in groups. Those groups were the personal bodyguards and hearth-troops of the Viking leaders as I previously stated.

Also, there are four warders biting their shields in the Lewis (not Lewes, as you write) gaming pieces, but they all post-date the Viking Age and are clearly depicted in late twelfth or early thirteenth century garb. They represent a medieval concept of the berserkr, not a Viking Age one.

Saga evidence suggests that berserkir did not wear metal armour. It's a matter of the Old Norse vocabulary used. The reason that they were thought to be immune to edged weapons may have been because their animal skins were resistant to cutting, and this could have led to the stories that they could only be defeated by clubbing, flexible animalskin armour being vulnerable to such an attack. This is supported by the description from Óláfs saga helga of how Þórir hundr could only be wounded on those parts of his body that were not covered by an animalskin (variously reindeer or wolf depending upon which version of the saga you read).

While the sagas do describe berserkir biting their shields, wider analysis of the motif in Old Norse literature suggests that this is metaphorical shield-biting. They are raising their shields to cover their mouths and their 'howling' is the chanting of 'spells' from behind the shield. Analysis of the vocabulary of howling in Old Norse literature supports this.

Close reading of the sagas shows that howling and shield-biting happened before and not during battle and that berserkir did not go berserk in the medieval mind. Hedenstierna-Jonson mentions this with regard to Viking Age warfare:
'The chosen warriors of Odin and the berserker and ulvhednar phenomena discussed by several modern-day scholars bear no great resemblance to the indications of tactical warfare and organized bands of warriors reflected in the archaeological material and in other sources. In fact, according to the present study, behaviour of this kind would have been counterproductive in the line of battle, where self-control and presence of mind were vital.'

Close reading of Old Norse literature demonstrates that the medieval authors of that literature did not believe that berserkir went berserk. To understand a little better what the medieval saga authors understood by the term 'berserkr' try this post on the Uni of Nottingham website:
link

Regarding Þórólfr Skallagrímsson (Thorolf the Icelander), his becoming battle-mad is a common topos in the sagas, and is not a sign that he was a berserkr. In fact, there is nothing in Egils saga to indicate that he was. He was also nothing like 'an ordinary grunt'. He was a high-status person with close contacts among the social elite of his time. Having said that it is a familiar topos, there is no reason to believe that some people would not have gone berserk in battle. It is a stress reaction to particular circumstances that has been much studied in recent years. However, that does not make those people berserkir.

In this case the literary tradition has something to be said for it because the rather drier interpretation from the historical sources is so thin.

You can certainly use the literary tradition to flesh out your army, but you should acknowledge that is what you are doing, and recognise the limitations of the literary sources.

Sagas are literature, not history.More in common with the History channel version of Vikings rather than the reality

Exactly. I usually describe the sagas as historical fiction to my students. They are based on history but they are not reportage.

There is also the difficulties you face when trying to analyse them using only translations. It is far too easy to come a cropper trying to make statements about what they mean if you do not use a decent edition in Old Norse, because the translator has already made some interpretative decisions for you.

Indeed, but we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that that the other sources for the Vikings were history rather than literature.?

The sagas can be viewed on two levels, on the one hand they are written down a couple of hundred years after the events they describe and clearly pull in a lot of stories from other sources and imagery that is contemporary with the writer not the subject. On the other they represent genuine traditions in a society in which oral tradition of your ancestry, your land rights and laws was important. So I am predisposed to see traditions that fit with what else we know about the Vikings as being valid. Hence I would have my doubts about using Harald's Saga for evidence of English cavalry, but for Viking tactics at Stamford Bridge and for the Main army having left its armour at the ships I would be quite happy. We have to exercise some judgement, that's all. When we have Saxo Grammaticus transmitting a tale of the men of one province being noted archers at a battle that is probably legendary then I would be quite happy to accept that the region had a reputation for bow use that justifies us claiming a unit or two with good bow capabilities because we have good archaeological evidence for Viking bows and chronicle evidence for their use in warfare.
All we need to do is exercise a little caution.
Berserks used to be popular as a unit. Nowadays we would see a unit as way too many, but as individuals or as a small group they do sound reasonable in a pagan warrior society. Given that they exist to break the opposing line it is worth modelling the effect that a specific hero might have.

Nowadays we would see a unit [of berserkir] as way too many, but as individuals or as a small group they do sound reasonable in a pagan warrior society. Given that they exist to break the opposing line it is worth modelling the effect that a specific hero might have.

I disagree strongly with this statement. As I wrote earlier, the archaeological and literary evidence taken together indicate that Viking Age berserkir were the personal retinues of lords and not psycho nutter fire-and-forget weapons. Their role was to protect and fight for their lord. This would include breaking the enemy line, but not in the sense of a suicidal charge on their own as might be represented in a wargame by a single figure attacking the line. Such tactics belong to the periods of tribal warfare that pre-date the Viking Age, which was a period in which the medieval retinue was evolving. As such, simply assigning higher morale and skill levels to the troop they are part of would be enough.

Samson does a sterling job of gathering all this evidence together in his Les Berserkir, which he is working up to be published in the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde series. Until that volume is published, his thesis is worth a read:
link

No no, berserks are not the whole of a lord's retinue, only part of it . One supposes that the lord hardly wants his personal entourage setting off into the heart of the fray leaving him on his own.
The Thorolf episode is representative of berserk behaviour.. Being a lord and having a following does not mean that Thorolf was not a berserk and it did not prevent him from acting like a berserk.
The act of slinging your shield on the back and charging into the foe should fill your psycho nutter requirement.
The academic article was reviewed on the Society of Ancients web forum a while back. If you are a member you can go to the Forum and look it up…and see the discussion on it.

Here are Peter Pig Berserkers. I'm not sure about the naked one, but the others look sufficiently different.

This from Saxo book seven: At this time one Hardbeen, who came from Helsingland, gloried in kidnapping and ravishing princesses, and used to kill any man who hindered him in his lusts. He preferred high matches to those that were lowly; and the more illustrious the victims he could violate, the more noble he thought himself. No man escaped unpunished who durst measure himself with Hardbeen in valour. He was so huge, that his stature reached the measure of nine ells. He had twelve champions dwelling with him, whose business it was to rise up and to restrain his fury with the aid of bonds, whenever the rage came on him that foreboded of battle. These men asked Halfdan to attack Hardbeen and his champions man by man; and he not only promised to fight, but assured himself the victory with most confident words. When Hardbeen heard this, a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the hearts of six of his champions. It is doubtful whether this madness came from thirst for battle or natural ferocity. Then with the remaining band of his champions he attacked Halfdan, who crushed him with a hammer of wondrous size, so that he lost both victory and life; paying the penalty both to Halfdan, whom he had challenged, and to the kings whose offspring he had violently ravished.'
Hardbeen engages in berserk behaviour, eating coals and biting the edge of his shield. Rather than be in a king's retinue he has his own band of thugs who terrorise the locals and carry off and rape well born women.

Given that we are modelling units rather than individuals her I suggest that one or two units might have berserks in them , perhaps one being the leader's unit. Units with a berserk component could then have a plus in melee , but not a plus that could be totally predictable .

The act of slinging your shield on the back and charging into the foe should fill your psycho nutter requirement

You appear to be missing the point of my comment. My point is that berserkir were NOT psycho nutters. My point is that berserkir did NOT go berserk. The references I cited present the evidence necessary to demonstrate this. Furthermore, analysis of the Íslendingasögur clearly demonstrates that the medieval concept of berserkir is at variance with modern English usage(see the Uni of Nottingham post I cited). English-language depictions from the early nineteenth century onwards focus on a definition that is much simpler than the medieval concept and over-emphasises frenzy. Medieval Scandinavian depictions show warriors who fight duels on behalf of their lord, stand as his defenders in battle and are particularly fierce/aggressive (not the same as frenzy or going berserk). The evidence from the Vendel period through to the medieval period shows that this latter role was the Viking Age role of berserkir and that they were the elite of the warband, the personal bodyguard of their lord, and that their number probably included the lord or king too. Actually, going berserk would have been counter-productive, although the appearance of berserk ferocity could have been cultivated to intimidate the enemy (see Hedenstierna-Jonson cited earlier).

The academic article was reviewed on the Society of Ancients web forum a while back. If you are a member you can go to the Forum and look it up…and see the discussion on it.

If you are going to reference evidence on this forum then you need to cite the sources here too. Directing me (and other readers) to a closed forum does not bolster your argument. Simply citing the scholar's name ought to be enough for me to identify the article and obtain it, and would be gratefully received.

This from Saxo book seven

To quote from Eric Christiansen in Friis-Jensen (ed.), Saxo Grammaticus A Medieval Author Between Norse and Latin Culture: 'there was no reason why sheer invention should not have played as important a part in Books XIII to XVI as in Books I to XII'. In other words, Saxo made a lot of stuff up, especially about the legendary period. The description you cite is fantastical and belongs with the descriptions from the riddarasögur, where berserkir just become another type of monster. The Íslendingasögur and to some extent the fornaldarsögur provide a better basis for reconstructing the Viking Age berserkr. Saxo does not.

Actually I don't need to cite a source on this forum… its a lightweight discussion forum, wukong, The purpose of Gunfreak collecting a Viking army is most likely to have a good game with some movement towards it being fun and a bit different. On that basis. a few berserk figures in a unit is absolutely fine.

The trouble with the academic views on such subjects is that they tend too much to the Vikings as child friendly traders point of view and not enough (IMHO) to the evidence as showing the Vikings as last hold outs of Germanic paganism with an inherited tradition of cult based violence that includes magical rites and groups of young men getting up to dark things in the woods.
I was quite careful to say that Saxo and the Sagas are not primary evidence and represent a continued oral tradition in a society that depended upon the accurate transmission of oral tradition. You, however, misrepresent me as believing the tales whole cloth.
Just what is your evidence that berserks do not fight in a frenzy? I have no problem with them as part of a bodyguard, but I see them as there to add something special, not just to stand with the other warriors.

Looked at your Nottingham university link and its weakness is that it describes berserks as bodyguards and as as local bullies (as I said earlier) However, it does not cover the use of berserks in war. It does not offer support that they simply stand in with the other warriors.

link

Is the article on axes.:-))

Actually I don't need to cite a source on this forum

You do if you want people to accept your arguments. I don't know your academic credentials and thus cannot take at face value anything you write without support. Furthermore, the references are of interest to those of us that wish to follow up on them, and your refusal to provide them when asked does you no credit. While the OP may only wish to play a game with an army with some colour, they may also be interested in finding out more and in greater depth about the army. Providing the references gives them the choice to follow up or not as suits their wishes. I am not asking for fully footnoted posts, but providing enough information for interested parties to pursue the topic is a valuable service to the posters and readers here.

The trouble with the academic views … up to dark things in the woods.

Seriously, you accuse me of misrepresenting you and make such a sweeping misrepresentation of modern scholarship in the same post? Academic interpretation of the Vikings and the Viking Age is far more nuanced than your comment suggests. People are researching all aspects of Viking life and there is no polarisation towards a 'child-friendly traders point of view'. Moreover, research is engaging with sub-cultures within the Nordic world to the extent that discussion of 'the Vikings' is effectively meaningless in many contexts. There are some over-arching cultural similarities, especially among the social elite, within the Nordic world but there are also numerous sub-cultures that express themselves in the archaeological record. To see this you only need to trawl academia.edu for papers and look at recent publications.

Just what is your evidence that berserks do not fight in a frenzy?

I've already cited as much evidence as is needed and more for a 'lightweight discussion forum' at 7.41 PST and at 8.31 PST above. I suggest reading the posts and following up on the linked sources (especially my blog post on the Nottingham Uni website) would be a good start. Further evidence of the lack of frenzy is provided by the etymology of ON berserksgangr, the component elements of which are not used in any Old Norse context to mean frenzy, and by the descriptions of berserksgangr in the Íslendingasögur. I draw your attention to Snækollr in Grettis saga and Ljótr inn bleiki in Egils saga, both of whom are clearly not in a frenzy, and suggest you consider what it means that Ljótr asked for a rest part-way through the duel with Egill.

Thank you for the article on the axes. Much appreciated. And, of course, I now realise that I have a copy of her PhD sitting on my hard drive waiting to be read. Time to move it up the queue.

Actually you were the one who introduced the concept of "psycho butters' I suspect that was a matter of setting up a straw man. You don't answer the question on what the berserks were doing in the battle line which your post on the Nottingham University site does not answer. It is entirely compatible that the berserk is a gangster at home, some are employed by jarls and kings as enforcers/ bodyguards and that they act as line breakers in battle.For a respectable academic's view on this and on the long Germanic tradition of berserk fighting without armour and heading into the enemy formation see Ancient Germanic Warriors by Michael P Speidel.

Wea re also being a little unfair on Saxo and the Sagas because debate here is very constricted. Warriors are seen as acting the berserk (such as Thorolf) who are not in themselves berserkers living as such. They act in a berserk manner in the battle, taking off armour, slinging shield, advancing into the foe with weapons held in both hands. Of course the leaders may have taken place in a berserker cult (or bear or wolf).

As to current academic thinking, of course I do not dismiss it all, There are many things to be learned. Where I do think it took a wrong turn was in going so far down the line of Vikings as traders that it lost the plot on Vikings as bloodthirsty cultic warriors cutting blood eagles on their opponents. Whilst I buy that Vikings are not universally successful in war they do disproportionately well against their opponents and that is very likely because they are unexpectedly savage

You are right that I used the expression 'psycho nutters'. It was in response to your comment that they were 'released to disrupt the enemy'. I saw the two modes of expression as analogous because that is how they are usually depicted: psycho nutters who charge without thought for their own safety at the enemy ahead of the main army, or out of its ranks. It is a frame of reference that is particularly prevalent in modern popular culture depictions.

I answered the question about what berserkir were doing in the battle line on here earlier. They were the lord or king's personal bodyguard, his closest elite warriors. They were the backbone of the shieldwall and did not charge wholesale out of the battle line in a berserk frenzy. They were champions of the king. Their role as champions could see them fighting in the shieldwall, fighting duels on the king's behalf or taking part in ritual activities that related to the warband. It could also see them raiding elsewhere to raise money/treasure that they would then share with the king and that he would re-gift to them. It is highly unlikely that they were a type of tribal warrior society by this point. Scandinavian society in the Viking Age was no longer tribal and had been evolving away from its tribal roots for centuries. They were more like a medieval retinue, even if their roots were in the tribal cultic groups that existed earlier. As such, to model them in wargames one need only assign higher morale and training to the personal guard troops of the lord or king in your army.

Speidel's work on berserkir and the berserk tradition is not very good. I have read it and his previous article on berserk warriors. They do not stand up to critical examination. I like Guy Halsall's description of Ancient Germanic Warriors as 'bizarre' but David Woods' review in German History 23.4 is more complete and seeks to find the good in the book as well as pointing out the bad. For a better anthropological view of berserker-like traditions, I recommend Kris Kershaw's 'Odin – The one-eyed god'. It is wide-ranging, academically satisfying and even makes good points where I do not wholly agree with it.

As you write, we do not have space or time to do justice to Saxo and the sagas here. Nevertheless, there is a semantic difference between going berserk in battle and being a berserkr. The former is a topos that features in the sagas. Snorri repeatedly has different kings throwing off their armour in battle, for example. It is a literary device that he uses to demonstrate courage and is not a reliable measure of whether a person is or was a berserkr. Some of the people that he has doing it are devout Christians and would not associate themselves with any form of pagan practice, so they cannot be berserkir. Being a berserkr is a status indicating high social rank and membership of a lord's personal retinue during the Viking Age. Even Liberman who disputes many things about berserkir agrees with this last point and discounts berserk frenzy as part of their stock-in-trade. When analysed the so-called berserk frenzy (ON berserksgangr) is more like a haka as performed by the All Blacks. After all, they were professional warriors in a period when warfare was becoming more organised and they will have behaved as such.

For the myth of the blood eagle see Roberta Frank, 'Viking Atrocity and Skaldic Verse: The Rite of the Blood-Eagle':
link

Despite this demythologising of the blood-eagle, those Scandinavians that fought abroad were fearsome warriors certainly. Attempts to redress the balance from earlier blood-and-guts schools of history may have gone too far in the opposite direction, but it needed to be done so that the pendulum could swing back, as it has, and a more balanced view that considers Vikings in their context could be adopted. Much work needs to be done on this and recent research is working on that. Focusing solely on their bloodthirstiness is just as one-sided and misleading as focusing only on trade or life at home.

I am enjoying this quite a bit.
I am well in with the Wukong camp.

I tend to idea that your importance in a shield wall, in the eyes of others and yourself was the distance you were standing from your immediate superior. All the better equipped , most experienced men would be near, arounf the "big man" them you would dinf lesser men filling out the rest of the "unit". I don't think these blokes had read most of the wargames rules that suggest front rank heavies lighter to the rear. Not their style at all.And for goodness sake who wanted to be a skirmisher? The poor , the too old , the too young ,the very poorly equipped perhaps might take the job? No kudos in being a skirmisher and kudos has a lot to do with this style of warfare .I play Impetvs so I don't have to worry about anything other than my aesthetic principles.Incidently I think there is too much armour being worn on the table and too many raven banners, way to big, flapping(?) as well.

I play Impetvs so I don't have to worry about anything other than my aesthetic principles.

I play Impetus too, and I really appreciate a rules set that gives you such freedom for aesthetic satisfaction. I play in 6mm and favour cramming as many figures as I can onto a base, so my armies have hundreds or even thousands of figures in them. Despite my favoured scale, I find the individual stands of 28mm figures like the ones above very inspiring.

The armour question depends upon the period and the Viking era can extend for some 500 years. Even at the beginning there is a surprising amount of armour in Vendel graves, though that might reflect a more aristocratic society.
As to later Vikings the case for armour is that not wearing a mail shirt is remarkable and is. an indicator of berserk behaviour. If mail is not quite common then stripping off your mailshirt would be a lot less remarkable.
Equally, the Vikings at Stamford bridge not having mail shirts would be meaningless if they did not generally have them.
Similarly the distinction made by an Irish source that the Norse were armoured and the Irish were not would be false unless the Norse were substantially armoured.
Successful Vikings had the opportunity to obtain armour by loot and by trade in several zones of action. Hence I'd have no problem with the more experienced men having armour and being likely to be in the front ranks.
We do assume, of course that the best men generally stood to the front.

As to Speidel's views. I support him because what he says is interesting, even if it relies on several leaps of faith. He integrates behaviours that span hundreds of years and those who prefer their history tightly argued around a group of graves may not like it. However, he does offer a theory that integrates Northern European military behaviours and he does explain and integrate many pieces of evidence , such as the Germanic auxilia on Trajan's column. Speidel's view that there is a continuing warrior culture that lasts from 1000BC to 1000AD albeit with changes over time offers many insights.
Don't go assuming that I do not have scepticism about some things that Speidel highlights. Do Roman tombstones that show naked warriors being trampled show trained horse slashers with a special battlefield technique under the hooves, or a crushed enemy? What he does do is cast the question as to why fighting naked for special groups or individuals means something from Scotland to Turkey and for 2000 years. Similarly, on wolf and bear warriors he shows that this is not just some isolated cult but has meaning across the Germanic North . Given that our evidence from these non literate lands is sparse and often from outside or much later he has done a good job.
Skirmishers we will just have to differ on. I long ago came to the conclusion that skirmishing pre battle is one of those things that is universal, but seldom mentioned. When we have a really good source such as Caesar describing many battles. Gallic skirmishers get one or two mentions. The sources for Viking battles are much sparser, we know that the Vikings had missile weapons and that they had a pre contact missile phase. Some of that is undoubtedly a near contact volley of spears from the body of the army, but I see no reason why there should not be an initial period in which archers and slingers operate from a distance, just not a lot of them.
In one of Guy Halsall's books he looks at case for Anglo Saxons fighting mounted and suggests looking at the evidence for the Franks fighting mounted. and indeed, if we did not have an initial assumption that they did so then the evidence would be very thin. That's the nature of the period. So I start from the likelihood that some initial skirmish activity is likely and you do not.

From Saxo book eight

By this harangue of King Ring he kindled high the hearts of the soldiers. Now Brun, being instructed to form the line on Harald's behalf, made the front in a wedge, posting Hetha on the right flank, putting Hakon in command of the left, and making Wisna standard-bearer. Harald stood up in his chariot and complained, in as loud a voice as he could, that Ring was requiting his benefits with wrongs; that the man who had got his kingdom by Harald's own gift was now attacking him; so that Ring neither pitied an old man nor spared an uncle, but set his own ambitions before any regard for Harald's kinship or kindness. So he bade the Danes remember how they had always won glory by foreign conquest, and how they were more wont to command their neighbours than to obey them. He adjured them not to let such glory as theirs to be shaken by the insolence of a conquered nation, nor to suffer the empire, which he had won in the flower of his youth, to be taken from him in his outworn age.
Then the trumpets sounded, and both sides engaged in battle with all their strength. The sky seemed to fall suddenly on the earth, fields and woods to sink into the ground; all things were confounded, and old Chaos come again; heaven and earth mingling in one tempestuous turmoil, and the world rushing to universal ruin. For, when the spear-throwing began, the intolerable clash of arms filled the air with an incredible thunder. The steam of the wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight was hidden under the hail of spears. The help of the slingers was of great use in the battle. But when the missiles had all been flung from hand or engines, they fought with swords or iron-shod maces; and it was now at close quarters that most blood was spilt. Then the sweat streamed down their weary bodies, and the clash of the swords could be heard afar.
Starkad, who was the first to set forth the history of this war in the telling, fought foremost in the fray, and relates that he overthrew the nobles of Harald, Hun and Elli, Hort and Burgha, and cut off the right hand of Wisna. He also relates that one Roa, with two others, Gnepie and Gardar, fell wounded by him in the field. To these he adds the father of Skalk, whose name is not given. He also declares that he cast Hakon, the bravest of the Danes, to the earth, but received from him such a wound in return that he had to leave the war with his lung protruding from his chest, his neck cleft to the centre, and his hand deprived of one finger; so that he long had a gaping wound, which seemed as if it would never either scar over or be curable. The same man witnesses that the maiden Weghbiorg (Webiorg) fought against the enemy and felled Soth the champion. While she was threatening to slay more champions, she was pierced through by an arrow from the bowstring of Thorkill, a native of Tellemark. For the skilled archers of the Gotlanders strung their bows so hard that the shafts pierced through even the shields; nothing proved more murderous; for the arrow-points made their way through hauberk and helmet as if they were men's defenceless bodies.

Its the reference for slingers.
And yes, I know its a legendary battle and Saxo is writing around 1200, but then I choose to see his description of Bravellir as being largely compatible with the earlier style of fighting rather than a more knightly 13th century style. Hece I think his reference to slings is useable.
Similarly his description of the Gotlanders as effective archers I would take to indicate a tradition of effective archery in numbers and accuracy for at least some units.

Hawkwood will be pleased to know that earlier in the piece on this battle the king goes around telling the best men to be in the front rank!
Of course if that were a description of a 13th cent battle then the best men would bet the social upper class and no doubt about who was up front. Again I think Saxo carries forward a genuine tradition.

As to later Vikings the case for armour is that not wearing a mail shirt is remarkable and is. an indicator of berserk behaviour.

No. As I wrote before, it is a literary device. Analysis of all episodes featuring it show this and most were written by Snorri. Snorri usually has people do this because the weather is too hot, but in doing so he speaks to the courage/foolhardiness of the person doing it. The people being described are invariably among the social elite and might be expected to have mail anyway. In that respect it is remarkable that they divest themselves of their best protection, but it is not really an indicator of the presence of mail among all ranks.

Regarding 'berserk behaviour', I reiterate that 'going berserk' and 'being a berserkr' are semantically related but different concepts and that the latter does not require the former. Any army might have warriors or soldiers going berserk (see Jonathan Shay Achilles in Vietnam for modern descriptions). It is not solely the province of Viking armies. As the blog post notes, ON 'berserkr' is best translated by PDE 'champion', because that is the role they fulfilled in battle and in the hall. The role of berserkir was to stand firm around their leader and not to charge off into single combat in battle or charge the enemy line on their own. To presume that a berserkr must have gone berserk is to project the modern English meaning of 'berserk' back onto the Old Norse word.

So I start from the likelihood that some initial skirmish activity is likely and you do not.

That really depends how you define skirmish activity. If you mean shooting and throwing things from within or just in front of the lines, then we are in agreement. If you mean units of skirmishers as might be found in a classical Greek or Roman army then we are not.

From Saxo book eight

Amusingly, this same battle description offers us the opportunity to argue for the use of scythed chariots (currus falcatus) by Danish armies of the eighth and ninth centuries! That facetiousness of mine aside, Ellis Davidson notes that the battle description appears to draw on classical descriptions of Cannae, which might lend some doubt about the weapons and equipment present beyond the possibility of Saxo just making stuff up once more. I do not completely discount the possibility of the use of slings in battle, because anything that could hurl missiles might be used and we have sufficient evidence to show that slings were known and used in Viking Age Scandinavia, but I remain sceptical about units of psiloi-like slingers racing around the battlefield.

"Skirmishers" is the problematic word, as Wukong points out.

Until later in the middle ages, there were seldom actual "units" of missile troops as distinct from the main battle line troops, usually "stick flippers" were intermixed in the main battle line, or, as also pointed out, just in front of it or on the immediate flanks if in sufficient numbers, e.g. Bourgtherolde. I see Viking, Anglo-Saxon and other contemporary armies doing likewise.

It seems like Saxo was engaged in writing "historical fiction" before the genre had a name, and was conscious that his story was set in former times, therefore drawing on sources from antiquity suited his purposes well. There should be no connection between a 13th century writer and unrecorded battles and traditions of the 11th or earlier centuries.

Another example of this is Snorri, who is a mixture of the contemporary and the passed down wisdom/lore of an earlier time. He wasn't writing "historical fiction", but he was engaging in ancestor worship of a sort, making out his protagonists to be larger than real life. But there is nothing fantastical about his battle descriptions, and Vikings facing on foot mounted foes who used throwing spears (and less likely bows) from horseback can be verified by contemporary evidence that Sturluson had never seen, e.g. the Bayeux Tapestry. When we get down to arguing the fine details such as who had cavalry, how much of it, how effective, and using what tactics, etc., then resorting to Snorri Sturluson for evidence to assert these details becomes problematic. He can only be reliable in the most general sense, not the specific, without backing up his details with contemporary evidence….

Wukong you have mentioned a couple of times Berserks are there to stand firmmaround their leader. Do you have any examples of this?

The difference between berserk behaviour and berserks or others acting like berserks in a Viking army is that US troops in Vietnam do not have a specified group who are named beforehand and take part in cult activity.. Other warriors who lose it do not have a cultural reference point for doing so in the same way. I find Speidel's points about magical nudity and weapons not touching the maddened one as having a continuity quite compelling here.

I have my doubts about battle descriptions being taken from sources such as Livy or Sallust. Happy enough that medieval chroniclers use a Latin ohrase or two but it would be interesting to know if Davidson actually showed a parallel structure with Cannae.
As to skirmishers, not great numbers and not organised bodies we would agree and I would be more certain of slings in armies in Scandinavia where they were more likely to contain country folk.

Other warriors who lose it do not have a cultural reference point for doing so in the same way.

This ignores a point I have already sought to make several times. This point is that Viking berserkir did not go berserk. The howling and shield-biting (or spell chanting as I have interpreted it) is posturing before the battle to bolster their own courage and intimidate the enemy. Like the haka of the All Blacks, it is a ritual and is actually a demonstration of control rather than lack of control. Analysis of episodes like the duel between Egill and Ljotr inn bleiki clearly shows this.

Instead of thinking of them as men that lost control, it is better to think of them as equivalent to the Parachute Regiment, using controlled extreme aggression to achieve their goal in battle.

I find Speidel's points about magical nudity and weapons not touching the maddened one as having a continuity quite compelling here.

This may be a valid point for tribal societies before the Viking Age, but for Viking Age Scandinavia Speidel is utterly wrong. Society had changed massively during the Migration period and Vendel period and was continuing to evolve and change. It had not been tribal for some time and the points Speidel makes are only really valid for earlier tribal societies.

you have mentioned a couple of times Berserks are there to stand firm around their leader. Do you have any examples of this?

These are professional warriors functioning in the same heroic tradition as Byrhtnoth's warriors at Maldon. Their role as a personal bodyguard is demonstrated most clearly in Hrolfs saga kraka but is also mentioned in relationship to Haraldr harfagri. Given that I have already made the point about them not going berserk, what else will they do in battle? They will have been nearest their lord's standard and will probably have been in the front rank of the shieldwall, as has previously been suggested for the best troops earlier in this discussion. They were professional soldiers fighting in a period when holding the shieldwall together was important, so they will have done precisely as I wrote and stood firm around their leader. After all, that is what he gives them gold and gifts for.

Happy enough that medieval chroniclers use a Latin phrase or two

Hilda Ellis Davidson does show a parallel structure with elements of Cannae drawn via Vegetius.

Chroniclers of this period did not write history or even view history in the same way that we do. They were happy to lift elements wholesale from earlier authors whose works carried prestige. Basically the traditions of writing history in the late classical and early medieval periods were very different from our own with different standards of what constituted evidence. When reading Saxo or the sagas, it is extremely important to understand the culture of writing within which these works were created, because that affects what they say and how they say it.

With regard to Saxo's use of sources, I strongly recommend reading Eric Christiansen in Friis-Jensen (ed.), Saxo Grammaticus A Medieval Author Between Norse and Latin Culture. He makes the point about Saxo's priorities in using his sources and how he actually discounts Adam of Bremen and the Roskilde Chronicle as reliable sources, despite those being some of the most reliable (by our standards) sources he could have used.

Well it appears that Hrolf's Saga kraka is Fifteent century… and its full of fairytale events suchas men being turned into grey bears. in it kings ess both Berserks and champions. I heven't found the description that you adverise of the berserks acting as bodyguard, perhaps you could dut and paste it
In that saga a king has both berserkers and champions. That may be an oddity of the text I looked at, but there seems a clear distinction. What do you think this distinction is?

The detail in the saga doesn't really give us a description of how the berserkers fought. they are tough and offensive, but there is no description of battle technique unless that is you can copy one?

The point that you keep making about berserks not going berserk. We might argue about what degree of irrational behaviour is involved, but the examples from Saxo of men, leaders even, acting lije berserks are of men, taking off or not wearing body armour, slinging shield on back and attacking with weapons held two handed. That behaviour is modelled on berserk behaviour .

Took a look at HE Daviidson Saxo Grammaticus, The History of the Danes. Her reference to Cannae is weak. Vegetius describes the counter to the wedge formation as the shears or pincers which is not really what is described by Saxo. His counter to the wedge by king Hring is a curved line, not the angled straight line of Vegetius (page 132 of her second volume) .
Drawing up in a wedge is a commonplace formation, Germans, Romans do it as well as Vikings. Thus there is no need to consult Vegetius to draw up such a formation, nor is there need to have a tactical manual to draw up a counter measure of curving your line around to meet the wedge.
On bersekers she mentions them in her notes as entering battle in a state of fierce ecstasy and were often compared with wild beasts because of their savage and reckless disregard of danger.
She also mentions them being described by Leo the Deacon as emitting animal howling and that is in the tenth century, so well past the date of your Vendel and Dark Age cut off.

Thank you for reminding me that I had Davidson on the shelves.
I will look for Leo the Deacon… I have it somewhere. Don't hold out hope, though as the good lady only references one of her own books, not LtD

Leo the Deacon:
'ita tamen, ut Russi, innutrita feritate atque iracundia ducti, temere Romanos assilirent, fanaticorum ritu rugientes'
(Leo Diaconus Caloensis, Historiae, cols 635-926 (862))

Champions versus berserkir:
There is no difference between the 'champions' and the berserkir at Hrolf's court, except the author's desire to set up conflict between the two in Hrolfs saga. This is amply demonstrated in the story of Hrolfr described by Snorri in his Edda (Skaldskaparmal, 44), where some of the 'champions' are specifically named as berserkir. Their relative social status is demonstrated in Hrolfs saga by their allocation to seats. Old Norse 'kappi' and Old Norse 'berserkr' should both be translated as 'champion' in modern English.

well past the date of your Vendel and Dark Age cut off

Eh? When did I cite a cut-off point of the Vendel period and for what? I have never used 'Dark Age' in this discussion.

I'll respond to your other points later, when I have more time.

I haven't found the description that you advertise of the berserks acting as bodyguard

It's not as simple as picking a single quotation and saying "There, that proves everything", although Hrólfs saga kraka does actually state 'Skuld er nú komin til bardagans ok eggjar í ákafa sitt illþýði at sækja at Hrólfi konungi, því at hún sér, at kapparnir eru ekki allnær honum', so it was expected that his kappar and berserkir (as opposed to the more general hirð) would be nearest to him and not running off in psycho frenzies.

Furthermore, the fact that the kappar and the berserkir are one and the same places all of them as Hrolf's personal troops. They exist within an era when heroic culture dominated, placing them in the same situation vis a vis their lord as Byrhtnoth's troops at Maldon. That means that they are expected to stand beside their lord in battle, protect him and die with him if he dies. They are his hearth troops and it is their duty to do this. They accepted a social contract to do this when they accepted gold and weapons from him, which is why Hjalti goes running off to find Böðvarr bjarki after he notices that Böðvarr is not immediately visible on the battlefield. After all, he does not want his friend and mentor to get a bad reputation for failing in his duty. As the saga says, after the death of Hrólfr, 'ok þetta var þat, sem Böðvar bjarka angraði stórliga, at hann gat ekki veitt lið sínum herra, ok svá fleiri kappana, því at þeir váru nú svá fúsir at deyja með honum svá sem at lifa með honum, þá þeir váru í blóma æsku sinnar. Var nú gervöll hirð konungsins fallin, svá at ekki stóð einn upp, en kapparnir flestir særðir til ólífis, ok fór þetta eptir líkendum'. This shows that they are supposed to have felt the same way about their duty as Byrthnoth's troops did and responded in similar fashion.

I'll get to the nature of berserksgangr in my next break.

Are Hjalti and Bodvar berserks? They seem to be placed in oppisition to the berserks and are with the group of champions. They sit with the champions at table when the berserks are away.

You mentioned a cut off (Vendel etc) when you disagreed with Speidel about the maintenance of bear and wolf cults throughout the pagan period.

Are Hjalti and Bodvar berserks?

Snorra Edda, Skáldskaparmál (44):
'Hrólfr konungr mátti eigi fara fyrir ofriði þeim er hann átti við Saxa, en þó sendi hann Aðilsi berserki sina tólf. Þar var einn Böðvarr bjarki ok Hjalti hugprúði, Hvítserkr hvati, Vöttr, *Véseti, þeir brœðr Svipdagr ok Beiguðr.'

Snorri specifically names Böðvarr, Hjalti, Hvítserkr,
Vöttr, Véseti, Svipdagr and Beiguðr, and states that they were berserkir, whom Hrólfr sent to Aðils to aid him in battle.

You mentioned a cut off (Vendel etc) when you disagreed with Speidel about the maintenance of bear and wolf cults throughout the pagan period.

My intent was to contest magical nudity and madness as features of Viking Age warrior practice, not the possibility of bear and wolf cults. Re-reading what I wrote, I expressed myself poorly. I support the notion of pagan animal cults during the Viking Age, although the extent to which they were secret societies or Männerbünde is debatable given the social changes that occurred prior to the start of the Viking Age. How long they endured against the creeping inroads of Christianity is debatable too, although Þórir hundr and his men may have been the last hold-outs of such a group. They are certainly the last mentioned in any of the surviving literature. Sturtevant wrote a thoughtful article on the semantics of religion that also addresses the issue of how pure Germanic paganism was during the Viking Age (Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 8 (2012)). It is well worth reading and highlights the difficulty of discussing religious practice due to the lack of a suitable vocabulary as well as pointing out that religious syncretism affected religion and belief in Viking Age Scandinavia. This in turn would have affected cult practice in many ways. Vocabulary is also an issue with understanding berserksgangr, but I shall get to that shortly.

In terms of how Viking Age Scandinavians related to animals, Lotte Hedeager's 'Split Bodies in the Late Iron Age/Viking Age of Scandinavia' is informative. The lack of boundaries between animals and humans seems to support the possibility of animal cults, in whatever form they took in the Viking Age.

On berserkers she mentions them in her notes as entering battle in a state of fierce ecstasy and were often compared with wild beasts because of their savage and reckless disregard of danger.

Most scholars mention berserkir entering battle in a wild state of frenzy. This is an image that has prevailed since the earliest days of research into berserkir. When Samuel Ödmann wrote in 1784 that he thought berserkir took amanita muscaria, he was one of the first to begin their research into berserkir by asking how they went berserk, instead of asking if they went berserk. Other scholars whose work touches on berserkir have taken these attitudes and used them without questioning them, for the most part, although Liberman, Christiansen and Stephenson have all come down heavily on the side of the 'they never existed' brigade. However, they have addressed the issue from the perspective of berserkir that went berserk. In rejecting berserkir, they are engaging in the same lack of a nuanced interpretation as the scholars whose works they critique. Interestingly, I bought the SoA back issues CD after our last discussion some months ago and found an article by Matthew Bennett that examined the question briefly (Slingshot 116). That would have been a very useful article for me to have five years ago! I recommend reading it. Another interesting point is that since 1971 most general histories have drawn on Foote and Wilson The Viking Achievement for their information on berserkir. I undertook a historiography exercise on this. Foote and Wilson used only one source: Fredrik Grøn, ‘Berserksgangens vesen og årsaksforhold: en medisinsk-historisk studie', Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab Forhandlinger og Skrifter, 4 (1929). This means that their work did not encompass the most recent work at the time of writing, and that no research newer than 1929 has been added to most general histories since then. This has perpetuated an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. I can honestly say that my own research is the first proper academic study that begins by asking if they went berserk, instead of assuming a priori that they did. The results are enlightening and highlight the concept of the berserkr as elite professional warrior and not as someone that goes berserk. It identifies that there is no cultural reference point for 'losing it' in medieval or Viking Age Scandinavia. The examples cited in this discussion thread of warriors going berserk in battle are actually all literary devices, and they are common in Old Norse literature to the extent that they are effectively set-piece type scenes. Certainly some warriors could have gone berserk, but they did not have a cultural reference in the form of a type of warrior whose role was to go berserk.

So, what does it all mean really? That's the question. Firstly, there is no one berserkr. There are really three that are germane to this discussion:

1. The modern berserkr of popular culture is a one-dimensional killing machine that goes into a frenzy to such an extent that both friend and foe become his victims. This image is solidly perpetuated in English-language fiction from the early nineteenth century to the present day. It may be perpetuated in other languages too but I did not have the time to examine them. Given that frenzy is the defining characteristic of berserkir in popular culture, and that the general histories all emphasise this aspect of their nature, the primary traits of modern berserkir are clearly derived from the meaning of PDE ‘berserk'. The definition of PDE ‘berserk' also lends a spurious familiarity to the idea of the berserkr; we all know what ‘berserk' means, so we must, by extension, know what a berserkr was, which in turn guides the directions that research takes because the semantic framework directs the questions asked (see Whorf, Boroditsky, etc).

2. The medieval berserkr of the sagas is more complex than most analyses allow and demonstrates a level of cognitive polyphasia in the medieval mind. The presence within Old Norse literature of a multiplicity of berserkr archetypes shows this clearly. At the time that the sagas were written down, Scandinavians could accept and assimilate simultaneously the concepts of berserkir as members of a king's bodyguard, as hólmgöngumenn, as Christian champions and as monsters equivalent to trolls, giants or blámenn. While pagan berserkir would have been decried for their heathenism, they were still connected conceptually and semantically to the Christian berserkr of Barlaams ok Josaphats saga or to the usage of ON berserkr to translate OFr chanpion. Whether their lord be a terrestrial king or a heavenly one, they protect and fight for him, fighting duels or battles as needed to defeat his enemies. In all but the most lurid depictions, berserkir are not depicted as out of control or going berserk. That is the preserve of the monstrous berserkir of the lygisögur and riddarasögur.

3. The probable historical reality of the Viking Age is the king's berserkr who fights duels for his lord and stands beside him in battle. He is a professional soldier who uses controlled aggression to achieve his ends. His connection to Óðinn is demonstrated by the iconography of bracteates and helmet plates as well as in Snorra Edda and Ynglinga saga. The wealth of the graves in which these artefacts are found indicates high social status and it is tempting to suggest that the immediate male members of a lord's retinue, and perhaps the lord himself, were all berserkir, as is implied by the close relationship between the kappar and the berserkir in the hall of Hrólfr kraki. Their role would have included performing the rituals to bring Óðinn on side in battle and inducting younger members of the warband into their number. It is not certain whether this would have been a full cultic initiation or just ritual combat and hazing as a rite of passage by the time of the Viking Age. Changes in society from the earlier tribal society suggest the latter, but the former is not wholly out of the question.

I could write much more here, but I shall spare you that. I shall also disengage from the debate about whether berserkir went berserk. I have made my point, albeit in scant form and probably leaving too many questions unanswered, and I have noted that others do not agree with me. I will publish it as soon as I can in much fuller format. Perhaps reading that text will convince the doubters.

I am happy to answer specific questions about my notes here and my research, provided that the answers can be kept short, but I shall not engage in further debate about the nature of berserkir. I have identified the three models for berserkir that my research indicates exist, and I have indicated that the semantics of the debate about berserkir leads to a failure in our ability to communicate effectively on the topic. We need a new vocabulary to enable more effective discussion. I apologise that my notes here may lack coherency. I am somewhat unsatisfyingly trying to summarise a significant body of research in a format that is suitable for this discussion board.

Thanks for that, a long post. I am glad that you are recognising the otherness of berserkers. In a way they are like samurai, licensed killers and thugs. Their end comes when the Society that sustains them adopts Roman Christianity and perhaps because of the same social changes that lead to that adoption.
I think that they are more than professional warriors and different from the group of relatives, retainers , guests and hostages that surrounds Byhrtnoth.
It makes sense that kings and leaders take part in their rites because that makes more pkausible behaviour such as Thorolf's sich as entering battle without armour striking out right and left, impervioys to wounds and with his retainers racing to catch up.
I am unsure about the Haka simile. Do you mean a pre rugby match haka or a ore Maori battle haka. If the latter then I believe that part of the purpose is to terrify the enemy, but part to work yourself up into a frenzy so you do not feel pain, similarly wit Cuchulain at the ford.
Thinking of Maldon I would like to make a point about the concept of the shieldwall. maintaining such a formation across say 300 men six deep as major divusions of the army must have been and advancing is really difficult. I wonder if the wall is not made up of smaller more controlkable units , as I said earlier on in this debate, I would see the shieldwall containing smaller cores concatenated and more flexible than a solid line. After a fight had gone on some time it would be ible for a more mixed melee to take place and for combatants to seek each ither out, major combatants with their retinues that is, not some sort of atomised hollywood scrum. This, I feel, fits with the Maldon piem, with the sagas and some Frankish evidence, At the point where the combat has become more fluid individual heroic action becomes more possible.
As I intimated earlier the Vikings will have fought in teams. I think that you disagreed with this, but the soldier has to rely on those around him to do their part and use appropriate weapons. If facing cavalry then the chaps in the front rank had better keep hold of their spears. There is a passage in one of the sagas that describes an archer operating with two shieldbearers who protect him and, as you know from the. previous debate I suggest that a man with a two handed axe will pair with a man with a shield for obvious reasons. Anglo Sacon grave weapon sets also suggest differing equipment with the better off having a thrusting and a throwing spear whereas others have a pair of throwing spears (not as specialised for thrusting).
The descriptions in Saxo of people operating like berserks do not give that impression of teamwork, rather of individual heroism and there is a place for that, oarticularly when cutting a route into the enemy. That does not mean that the individual might not be playing his team part earlier.
Saxo's view of berserkers and the saga view are both later than the existence of berserks in their prime, though I am unsure about the Man Dublin Vikings, so they are not giving us recent reportage, but it striking that the legend of the berserk has so much durability and consistency.

We'll await your book then

I usually mention the All Blacks' haka, because that gives a frame of reference that more people will understand. I see both as having the same intent: terrify the enemy, bolster your own courage and stoke the adrenaline. I hesitate to call stoking the adrenaline 'frenzy' because the word is too loaded. There may be a bonding element in performing the same ritual together, and there may be culturally determined mystical significance, such as my suggestion that the howling and shield-biting of berserksgangr is the same as the chanting under the shield mentioned in Havamal. It is not my intent to claim that the pre-battle rituals of berserkir were the same as the haka, but that some ritual of that sort was done as preparation and that it was done by those closest in society to Óðinn.