Dark Ages
This is a response to the DWLs who are coming here who say that something like this could never happen in Norway. Apparently, they aren’t familiar with this story … the “content of the character” of the Germanic peoples has changed over the centuries. It has changed radically just since WW2.
Who is to say it is set in stone? See the founding of Iceland. What’s a berserker?
Berserkers (or berserks) were Norse warriors who are reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk. Berserkers are attested in numerous Old Norse sources. Most historians believe that berserkers worked themselves into a rage before battle, but some think that they might have consumed drugged foods.
The term “vandalism” is an archaic tribute to the Vandals. The English language is full of all sorts of interesting stories.
During the Renaissance wars when the French were campaigning in Italy, the Italians coined the term “furore francese” to describe the irresistible fury the French displayed on the attack, particularly as compared to the listlessness they displayed when required to defend.
In the early middle ages, when it was still the (germanic) Frankish kingdom and not yet France, the Franks were even more reputed for uncontrollable and disorganized fury on the attack. The large numbers of younger sons who fanned out across Europe and into the Mideast during the various Crusades and Mediterranean wars strongly impressed the easterners with their physical force also (Gibbon has a lot to say on this), although their bullheadedness and individualism prevented them from accomplishing as much as they could have.
I don’t think Breivik is the last of his sort.
The Welsh know the story of how the English came to live in Britannia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_shore
Hunter, your recent posts represent a true tour de force. Your analysis is really quite insightful. Keep going. As the old saying goes, “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess.”
ABB certainly seems an avatar of the ancient Viking berserker. Perhaps in the darkness of our times something stirs…
I have a wide variety of interests and a deep knowledge of any number of subjects. It has been shining through since the Breivik shooting.
Here’s the website of a modern berserker, who compares the state to a martial art.
http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/somafera/somafera%20-%20the%20body%20wild.html
Hunter, your recent posts represent a true tour de force.
I have to agree, I delight in checking in here daily now to see what Hunter will do/say next!
🙂
“Fury” derives from the Latin “furore”. This is the word the Romans, I am proud to say, used to describe the…ohhh….shall we say…un-self-concious, 110% conviction that the Celts (Gaul, Gallic, French, etc) used, in battle. The Berserker style goes WAY back, with Northern Whites.