Medieval Europeans believed in and feared many monsters. Basilisk, Demons, Dragons, also smart,
independent women, who they misbranded as witches. But unlike these made-up monsters,
there was one nightmare that was very real and could actually hurt them. A Viking Berserker!
These raging Norse warriors were known to enter raids and battles with bloodthirsty anger,
with madness like a dog and the strength of a bear or bull. Their crazy tranced eyes, full of lust
for blood were enough to make their enemies lose all hope long before the first strike.
However, their penchant for violence, gore, and killing wasn’t just something inherent.
Their blood dance looked like a trance-like state because they were actually high! Welcome to Nutty
History and let’s talk about what drugs were used recreationally during the Age of Vikings.
Vikings would perform blessing rituals before walking into battle or going for a raid. It is
believed that during this ritual, berserkers would go into a self-induced hypnotic trance. They would
lose conscious control of their actions as their mind would act subconsciously in this dissociative
state. People in this state seem remote, have little awareness of their surroundings, and have
reduced awareness of pain and increased muscle strength. Despite losing the ability of their
critical thinking and having a very little grasp on their social inhibitions, they would still be
awake and rage into the battle. Scandinavia is home to many fungal plants and so the common
belief behind the savage bloodthirst of the mighty Berserkers was thought to be the consumption of
these mushrooms. It started in 1784, a priest named Ödmann proposed a theory that ‘going
berserk’ was the result of eating fly agaric mushrooms. One of the psychoactive compounds in
fly agaric includes muscimol, which is a GABA receptor agonist, causing sedative-hypnotic,
depressant, and hallucinogenic effects. Because GABA receptors are everywhere in the brain,
muscimol alters neuronal activity in many regions, including the cerebellum, hippocampus, and
cerebral cortex. Mainly, the regions responsible for emotions and higher executive thinking. The
effects of muscimol start within 30 to 120 minutes and last for about 5 to 10 hours. Side-effects
include increased salivation, muscle twitching, tremors, and strong delirium, which all describe
berserking. The Fly Agaric theory is still quite popular and widely accepted among the masses
but most experts find it implausible. Ödmann based his hypothesis on reports about Siberian shamans
but he never tried the mushroom himself. If he had, he might have changed his mind.
In addition to its hallucinogenic effects, Eating agaric mushrooms can lead to depression
and can make the user apathetic. Fly Agaric is also quite poisonous and can cause nausea,
vomiting, dizziness, hallucinations, involuntary movements, and seizures. White Agaric couldn’t be
the cause of Berserk Fury either due to the logic that it shares most of the poisonous effects of
fly agaric and can put a person in a coma or outright kill a man! Another mushroom that
may have been the cause of Berserk Fury was the fungus Claviceps purpurea as it contains
a compound used to synthesize the hallucinogen LSD or lysergic acid diethylamide. But Claviceps
purpurea is also highly poisonous. However, the berserker trance was more like psychomotor
automatism which in forensic psychiatry can be described as diminished responsibility.
The high from that is followed by a major emotional catharsis in the form of tiredness,
exhaustion, and obviously long hours of sleep. Clearly, such practices of achieving abreaction
of strong aggressive, destructive and sadistic impulses diminished after the introduction of
Christianity. As such rituals and actions were and are considered demonic and thus were discouraged.
So, if mushrooms were too stomach-churning for the strongest of Vikings, what was helping
them achieve the trance of terror and tyranny? According to the findings of modern scientists,
it may have been henbane. Henbane or stinking nightshade has propped up in many Norse burial
grounds, including the grave of a berserker. Often considered as ‘The Crazy Plant’ in much
older civilizations, consumption of henbane can cause feelings of delirium, inhibition loss,
and manic episodes. It also triggers visual disturbances, hallucinations, drowsiness,
and red skin making it the perfect match for what Berserkers experienced during their fury.
Henbane also acts pretty well as a painkiller as we mentioned in our video, “what drugs were like
for ancient Romans and Greeks”. Thus, it does fit the bill to help in reducing the sensation of pain
among the no armor-wearing Viking vanguards who were known for being wild, unpredictable,
and highly aggressive. Now comes the question, how do they consume henbane? Karsten Fatur,
an ethnobotanist at the University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia, has very interesting theories about
that. Instead of going with the conventional way of smoking it, he believes they might have
infused it with alcohol, made an ointment out of it and rubbed it on their body, or surprisingly,
made an herbal tea out of it. We know what you are thinking, Savage Berserkers and posh herbal
tea don’t go well together especially on the eve of a battle or a raid. But it makes sense because
Henbane was also found in the grave of a sorceress in Denmark. Nordic Sorceresses or Volva as they
were called, were sort of like ancient Greek oracles or sibyls who used hallucinogens to go
in a trance-like state to “see” the future. Volva worked in a quite similar fashion but had more
shaman-like flair about them. If anybody was making herbal tea out of henbane or stinking
nightshade, it would be these ladies. But that doesn’t mean Henbane was a relatively safer choice
than shrooms. Henbane has been used over the centuries as a sedative, sleeping agent, and to
induce hallucinations. The plant is deadly toxic, and even though people did use the plant, it was
not at all harmless. So, the toxicity had to be reduced, because henbane contains hyoscyamine
and scopolamine, two substances that have a strong narcotic effect on the nervous system.
If the seeds are heated, the two substances evaporate and the vapors may act like a narcotic.
This is how the Oracle of Delphi must have used it back in ancient Greece and perhaps the tea
Volva made in Scandinavia was more for inhaling than drinking and must have been served hot right
off the pot. So then why is henbane preferred as a more plausible Viking drug over shrooms?
Both the plant and the fly agaric mushroom could have caused many of the symptoms
ascribed to berserkers but according to Karsten Fatur, agaric consumption doesn’t give you the
bloodlust like henbane may have. However, all of this study is still considered quite speculative
and some experts believe that Berserkers’ trance may have been totally natural and have nothing
to do with recreational drugs. But they cannot deny Volva’s involvement with henbane and perhaps
cannabis as well. In 1903, a farmer stumbled upon an ancient Viking Ship in Norway that
contained many artifacts from the 800s AD. Among the artifacts were the skeletons of two women
and a curious leather bag that contained cannabis seeds. These seeds are thought to be connected to
one of those women, known as the Oseberg Queen. The Oseberg Queen was suggested to be the Queen
Asa of the Yngling clan, mother of Halfdan the Black, and grandmother of Harald Fairhair.
Many archeologists believe the woman was not just a secular queen but also a priestess of Freya,
the love goddess of Norse mythology. Archeologists have believed that the cannabis seeds were used
in rituals during this pre-Christian period in Scandinavia. Freya was associated with hemp sowing
and harvest festivals across northern Europe, and often “erotic rituals” were held in her honor.
It’s thought that the feminine cannabis flower had erotic and love-generating powers and that
those who consumed these flowers would be imbued with the joy and seductive tendencies of the love
goddess. Furthermore, Vikings were perhaps the first to take weed across the big pond as well.
In August 2018, an archaeological team excavated a peat bog located nearly 100 feet east of the
Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. They found a layer of "ecofacts" or environmental
remains that may have been brought to the site by humans that were radiocarbon dated to the 12th or
13th century. These ecofacts included the remains of two beetles that were not from Newfoundland.
Don’t get your hopes up though, they were not John Lennon and Ringo, just some bugs from Greenland!
Also, the other remains were pollens of walnuts and cannabis that also don’t naturally grow in
L'Anse aux Meadows. Vikings were regularly in and out of Newfoundland for about 200 years.
The evidence of cannabis pollen matching their settlement time does indicate that it must be
them who brought the green leaf to the Americas. However, there are still some doubts on this
theory but if not them then who else? And that leaves us with Opium, it is true that Vikings
were aware of poppy and cultivated it in their Danish Viking Age kitchen garden, but was it
used recreationally? Unfortunately, neither the Viking sagas nor archeological excavations have
given us an answer to that. But what do you think? Tell us in the comments about what other ages or
civilizations should we cover in this series. And as always thanks for watching Nutty History.