The Fearless Viking Warriors
By: Peter Preskar
Tags: War, Europe, People, History, Vikings

The Fearless Viking Warriors

Meet the toughest warriors ever

A Viking warrior — an artistic depiction from a computer game Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. The Valhalla is the Viking version of heaven (Image: hdqwalls.com)

Vikings had a strong warrior culture, which made violence a common feature of their daily life. The Viking warriors excelled in hand-to-hand combat and learned to fight at an early age. In Norse mythology, if you died during combat and you truly enjoyed fighting, you would receive a place in Valhalla. This was a splendid palace, where warriors fought each other every day.

The Vikings cultivated warrior cults of the wolf and of the bear. The members of the bear cult called themselves the berserkers (meaning a bear shirt).

Their raids across Europe were notorious for their speed and timing aided by the fact that their longships were fast and could sail across the ocean or in the shallow river waters. Each ship carried a separate war band.

They appeared out of nowhere, attacked, and sailed away. True to their pirate nature, they didn’t announce a place and time for the battle.

Additionally, they were masters of reconnaissance work, they knew their opponents very well, especially their weaknesses. This led them to choose easy targets. For example, they attacked defenseless coastal monasteries on the British Isles and raided France during the Frankish civil war (840–843). These raids culminated in the Siege of Paris in 845.

The spear was their primary weapon. They would use spears for thrusting (three meters long) or for throwing (two meters long spears). The most experienced Viking warriors could catch a spear in the air and throw it back into the enemy.

Another weapon used by the Vikings was a battle-ax. The ax was a useful tool during peacetime and a formidable weapon during war. Swords were expensive and rare. They were a status symbol and warriors took them into their graves.

For protection, they used a round shield that measured one meter in diameter. The Vikings made the shield from softwood, which was more flexible and made enemy weapons jam into it.

Only the richest warriors wore chain mail and helmets. For sure, the Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets. The stereotype of the Vikings with horns on their helmets was born in the 1870s. Richard Wagner used the horned helmets for the Viking characters in his operas.

The Berserkers

The Berserkers wore bearskins into the battle (Image: Artstation/@Stefan Kopinski)

The berserkers were the most feared of all Viking warriors. They fought without armor, in a trance-like state. They ignored their wounds and had only one goal — to hack another human being into pieces.

During their frenzy, the berserkers didn’t differentiate between an enemy and a friend. They wore bearskins so that everyone knew who they were.

Their wildness on the battlefield was such that it gave way to the adjective berserk in the English language. According to the Cambridge Dictionary the word means ‘not in control, extremely excited, or crazy’.

Old sources tell the berserkers had a sudden spike in energy. They howled like wild animals and foam formed around their mouths. Adrenalin rushed into their blood and they forgot about their limits, such as fear or pain. After a few hours of frenzy, the berserkers became tame and disoriented.

The dominant theory, explaining their ‘berserk’ state, claims these Norse warriors used drugs. There were two drugs the Vikings could get, the first was a mushroom called fly amanita (Amanita muscaria) and the second was henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). They soaked the furry edges of their shields with drugs and sucked on them to get into the frenzied state.

As berserkers, they were members of the bear cult. The bear symbolized strength, and for the Vikings, wearing the bearskin imbued them with the bear’s power. Even today, the Danish and the English Royal Guardsmen wear hats made of bearskin.

Interestingly, the legends about werewolves originated from the berserkers.

The Varangian Guard

Varangian warriors and their equipment (Image: Devianart/@Magetathelion)

The Varangian Guard was the elite personal bodyguard for the Byzantine Emperors from the 10th till the 14th century. Their loyalty and battle prowess were legendary.

The Vikings raided Byzantine territories for decades. In 865, they even sacked the area around Constantinople — the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines learned firsthand about the fighting abilities of these Norse men.

In 988, Byzantine Emperor Basil II asked Vladimir I of Kyiv for military support. Vladimir sent 6000 unruly Vikings to Constantinople and thus the Varangian Guard was born.

In exchange for these elite warriors, Vladimir married Basil’s sister, Anna.

Initially, the Varangian Guard was only comprised of the Viking mercenaries. However, over the years, the Byzantines began to hire Anglo-Saxons and Normans as well.

The Varangian Guard served also as police to enforce the law. They took part in many Byzantine battles, such as the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

When the emperor died, the Varangians took as much gold and gems from the royal treasury as they could carry. This made many Norsemen very rich and encouraged many more to join the Varangian Guard.

The Varangian Guard served the function of the emperor, not the man sitting on the throne. If the emperor was usurped or assassinated, they didn’t avenge him. Instead, they pledged their loyalty to the new master.

The Varangians loved Greek wine and brothels and they would often get into trouble because they were dead drunk. Because of this, the Byzantines nicknamed them the ‘Emperor’s wineskins’.

Their weapon of choice was a battle-ax. Despite being excellent riders and archers, they preferred to fight on foot.

The female Viking warriors

A female Viking warrior — artistic depiction (Image:geneticliteracyproject.org)

In the 1880s in Birka, Sweden, archaeologists found a grave of an important Viking warrior. In the grave were a sword, an ax, armor-piercing arrows, two shields, and two horses. It was the equipment of a professional warrior. There was also a board game, which showed the deceased person had a knowledge of strategy.

One of the archaeologists suspected the shape of the skeleton to be that of a female. DNA analysis of bones in 2017 confirmed his suspicion. The discovery changed our knowledge about the role of women in Viking society.

The Norse sagas mentioned female warriors, with the Vikings referring to them as the ‘shield-maidens’. Until the Birka discovery, everyone thought they were only mythological figures. The DNA analysis proved this belief to be wrong.

Women in the Viking society had more rights compared to women in the rest of Medieval Europe. The fact that women fought alongside men and even led war bands means they were equal to men.

Conclusion

The Age of Vikings (from the 8th to 10th centuries) is full of surprises. The Viking men and women still excite our imagination to this day, just as they did to the people they fought during their raids.

In a nutshell, they were ordinary people who lived in a harsh environment. Their fearlessness and their free spirit led them to a quest for a better life.