Thanks Nicol for an interesting article. The phenomenon of mindless rage isn’t confined to our Norse friends, of course. We get the word amok from the Maly language, meaning uncontrolled destructive rage. And although we now use words like genocide, modern history is too full of examples of similar phenomenon; the events in Rwanda in 1994 spring instantly to mind. I suspect one of the great benefits of having some berserkers within the ranks was the effect they’d have on the ordinary warriors around them, thus engendering mob-mentality blood-lust and thereby making the entire force far more effective in battle.