Berserker is an effective and deliberately evoked fighting frenzy, as an extraordinary manifestation of human fortitude, in the ancient Germanic and ancient Norse society, a warrior who devoted himself to the god Odin.
Among the Germanic peoples, it turned into a kind of cult of the warrior-beast. Beast-like "transformations", which are the highest form of the development of battle rage, are known among all Germans. Late antique historians report about the "Frankish fury", about the "wolf-warriors" of the Lombard people … At the same time, such irrepressible forces were released that even a closed disciplined system and the art of "correct combat" could not always resist them.
For berserkers in their purest form, even the Vikings themselves treated with a feeling that was in between admiration, fearful respect and contempt. These are the true "dogs of war"; if they could be used, it was mainly in the position of "tamed animals".
A kind of "wisdom of insanity" protected the berserkers from throwing (and also from shock) weapons. Disinhibited consciousness included extreme responsiveness, sharpened peripheral vision and probably provided some psychic skills. The berserker saw (or even predicted) any blow and managed to beat it off or bounce back.
Traditionally, the berserkers formed the vanguard to begin the battle. They could not fight for a long time (a combat trance cannot last long), breaking through the ranks of enemies and laying the foundation for a common victory, they left the battlefield for ordinary soldiers who completed the defeat of the enemy.
Not every berserker knew how to competently use internal energy. Sometimes they spent it too extensively - and then, after the battle, the warrior fell into a state of "berserker powerlessness" for a long time, which was not explained only by physical fatigue.
Attacks of this powerlessness were so severe that the warrior-beast sometimes could die after the battle, even without being wounded.
The Slavs had their own "berserkers" - wolf roarmen. And not a single berserker could compare with the Slavic rover, because "The Slavs surpass the Germans both in body and spirit, fighting with bestial ferocity …" (Jordan, ancient historian, VI century).
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Rykar is a living embodiment of Slavic anger. Already in the name you can hear a furious animal roar, and the word itself literally means "roaring warrior." Outwardly, the Roarman looks like a complete madman, but inwardly he maintains an icy calm. The purpose of his life is to serve his family. Historical sources say that one roar was able to disperse 10-20 soldiers, and two roar put a hundred armed people to flight.
Three hundred rovers of the city of Arkona - the guards of the Svetovita temple, terrified the entire non-Slavic coast of the Baltic. The same warriors were famous and the temple of Radogost in the city of Retra. There was even a whole Slavic tribe of rovers - lyutichi (from the word "fierce"), all of whose warriors fought in wolf skins.
A warrior wishing to find a patron spirit, more often a wolf or a bear, had to fight them alone and naked. This is the reason why the enemies were so afraid of the roar, and the one who passed through this test himself became more dangerous than the beast he defeated.
The roarmen fought naked or in some animal skins, without chain mail and shields (they simply interfered with them!). They always rushed into battle first, with the battle cry "Yar!" rushing forward. Roaring like possessed, the roarmen destroyed their opponents, cutting the footman in half in a jump, and the horseman - to the saddle. Having lost his weapon, falling under enemy arrows, the roar continued to tear apart enemies with his bare hands, without fear of death, without feeling either pain or fear, possessing an unbending will. And neither steel nor fire could do anything with them.
The Slavic princes recruited close warriors-comrades-in-arms from the roarmen, and often they themselves were the roaring wolf-catchers. The rulers of Byzantium, China, the Caliphate - all had heard a lot about the great Slavic warriors, and had in their troops elite guard detachments, collected exclusively from the Slavs.
"Olbeg Ratiborich, take your bow, and put an arrow, and hit Itlar in the heart, and beat his squad all over …" (Radziwill Chronicle: L.: Nauka, 1989, p.91.) Eloquently. No less eloquent says the Nikon Chronicle about Ragdai: “And this man went to three hundred soldiers” (!). What is this, hero worship? Where is it! The barbarian is not beautiful at all in his path. This is the real essence.
“The nasty have 9 hundred mines, and Russia has ninety copies. Those who are hoping for the power, the rotten pondosh, and ours are against them … And the wallpaper is dreamed, and the evil was gone … and the Polovtsians were running out of them, and ours were driving along them, they were cutting …”(Radziwill Chronicle, p. 134. 26) …
Unfortunately, much of what our forefathers could and did have now been lost, forgotten, shrouded in a veil of secrecy and dark rumors, and requires a new discovery. Fortunately, the roots are not completely lost …
Few of the researchers draw parallels with Russian fairy tales about Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf; about Sivka-burka, through whose ear, having made his way, a new good fellow took strength; about Van, who turned into a Bear, etc.
Skald legends speak of berserkers as great creators of victories. In ancient Russian fairy tales - as about werewolves for the sake of victories on a wider scale. It turned out that magic warriors did everything because they possessed the highest, inhuman capabilities. For they were the favorites of the Gods! Masters of extraordinary powers!
Having awakened in oneself the accumulated reserves of evolution, animal nature and combining THIS with the trance capabilities of human consciousness, in fact, one can be an overactive person - for the sake of success and victories in life.
Mastering trance skills, hypnoid qualities, a special state into which the Berserker falls in order to induce a "bad" stupor on the enemy. The Berserker's victorious maneuvers are so fast and high-quality that the enemy will not even have time to understand that he no longer exists …
It is impossible to defend against the powerful energy of Berserkers, nothing can stop them, because in a moment of the enemy's reaction, the Berserker manages to get ahead of the enemy by several moves, inflict 3-4 victorious blows.
Berserk is not just a warrior's doctrine, but, unfortunately, it became such in official history, the church stood in the way of this closed brotherhood, outlawing berserkers, after which these people were exterminated for a reward. Since that time, it is generally accepted that these were ill-mannered people, full of anger and rage that cannot be controlled.
There are interesting facts:
1 - In the Nikon Chronicle there are amazing lines dated 1000: "Ragdai the Utter, as if this one is running into three hundred warriors" (Ragdai the Utter, who fought alone against 300 soldiers, died).
From legends it is known that Ragdai was like a wolf, and tales about the sword-kladenets originate from this character. Whom he swung as if he had no weight.
2 - Russian voivode Evpatiy Kolovrat hurried with a detachment of 1500 to help Ryazan besieged by Batu … Didn't have time … Having looked around the ashes, he decided to engage in battle with the enemy rearguard and crushed it on his head. When Batu was informed of the attack, he sent soldiers (tumen) to close the matter. The Russians held their own. Batu sent a second tumen. The Russians held out again. Struck by the valor of the knights, he offered them money and positions. They replied, "No." - "What do you want?" - asked Batu. “We want to die,” the Kolovrat squad answered.
After such an answer, Batu was forced to stop the army (an unheard-of moment in the history of warfare), rebuild it from a marching order into a battle one and move all his might against a handful of Russians.
Only one thing is absolutely clear, that a common man could not do such a thing, no matter how violent he possessed, there is the limit of human strength (physical).
There are official theories according to which the berserker's aggressiveness is explained by the intake of psychotropic substances before the fight, namely muscarin, the poison of the fly agaric. Today we know that people with fly agaric poisoning beat wildly around themselves, they are excited, they are visited by delusional thoughts. In others and doctors, they see fabulous creatures, gods, spirits. The toxic effect ceases after 20 hours, and then people plunge into deep sleep, from which in most cases they wake up only after 30 hours. This point of view is the most common, but other possible causes were named, such as hysteria, epilepsy, mental illness and heredity.