One of the Torslunda (c. 8th century) plates depicting Odin guiding a berserker or ulfheðinn (wolf-headed warrrior)
Today, to be or to go berserk means to be frenzied or crazed, and the term carries a connotation of violence. The word comes from the Icelandic berserkr, meaning a powerful Norse warrior who displayed a wild and uncontrolled fury on the battlefield. In other words, a stereotypical Viking, or at least how Vikings appear in modern, popular imagination. The etymology of the Icelandic word is disputed, but it probably comes from bear + sark, a type of shirt or tunic. So a berserk or berserker was literally a bearskin-clad warrior.
Berserk enters into English usage around the turn of the nineteenth century, a period when there was great literary interest in things medieval and, in particular, stories related to medieval Scandinavia. The earliest use of berserker that I have found in English is in a summary of the Kristni Saga, an account of the Christianization of Iceland that appeared in the January 1800 issue of Edinburgh Magazine:
After this triumph Thorwald traversed Iceland with the bishop; at Vatnsdal they were encountered by two Manics or BERSERKER, who raved, stormed, and, through the power of their familiar spirits, walked unhurt amid burning fire; but when Frederic had consecrated the fire, they were miserably scorched and slain.
In 1803, William Herbert published a translation of a portion of Hervarar Saga that contained this line:
Then went the sons of Angrym to Sams-ey; and when they arrived there, they found the champions fury come upon them.
Herbert commented on his use of “champion’s fury” to translate the Icelandic berserksgangr:
“Champions fury.” Berserksgangr. I have ventured to translate Berserker by the English word champions; but there is no term in any language, that can exactly answer to it. These extraordinary people have been called by Latin writers berserki. See Kristnisaga, p. 142. They fought without armour, and were subject to a sort of fury, which was called Berserksgangr. Their name is derived from ber, bare, and serkr, a garment or coat of mail. The following account of them is given by Snorre Sturleson. “Enn hanns menn foro bryniolauser, &c.[”] i.e. “And his (Odin's) men went without coat of mail, and were furious like dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or bulls; they slaughtered mankind, and neither fire nor steel had power ever them. That is called Berserks gangur.” Yngl. Sag. c. 6.
In 1806, Walter Scott would publish a version of the traditional ballad Kempion (or Kemp Owyne, Child's Ballad #34) and commented on his use of warwolf in the poem:
Warwolf, or Lycanthropus, signifies a magician, possessing the power of transforming himself into a wolf, for the purpose of ravage and devastation. It is probable the word was first used symbolically, to distinguish those, who, by means of intoxicating herbs, could work their passions into a frantic state, and throw themselves upon their enemies with the fury and temerity of ravenous wolves. Such were the noted Berserkar of the Scandinavians, who, in their fits of voluntary frenzy, were wont to perform the most astonishing exploits of strength, and to perpetrate the most horrible excesses, although, in their natural state, they neither were capable of greater crimes nor exertions than ordinary men. This quality they ascribed to Odin.
The following year, Sharon Turner would provide this description of berserkers in his History of the Anglo-Saxons:
One branch of the vikingr is said to have cultivated paroxysms of brutal insanity, and they who experienced them were revered. These were the Berserkir, whom many authors describe. These men, when a conflict impended, or a great undertaking was to be commenced, abandoned all rationality upon system; they studied to resemble wolves or maddening dogs; they bit their shields; they howled like tremendous beasts; they threw off covering; they excited themselves to a strength which has been compared to that of bears, and then rushed to every crime and horror which the most frantic enthusiasm could perpetrate. This fury was an artifice of battle like the Indian warwhoop. Its object was to intimidate the enemy. It is attested that the unnatural excitation was, as might be expected, always followed by a complete debility. It was originally practised by Odin. They who used it, often joined in companies. The furor Berserkicus, as mind and morals improved, was at length felt to be horrible. It changed from a distinction to a reproach, " and was prohibited by penal laws. The name at last became execrable.
The phrase to go berserk appears about a century later, indicating that the concept had become thoroughly anglicized and the word was no longer being used exclusively to refer to medieval Norse warriors. The earliest use of the phrase that I’m aware of is in a humorous short story by Rudyard Kipling titled The Child of Calamity (also known as My Sunday at Home). The story was published in numerous newspapers at the time, starting on 30 March 1895. In the story, a doctor encounters a sleeping navvy (i.e., laborer) at a train station, and mistakenly thinking the navvy has been poisoned, administers him an emetic. The navvy subsequently goes into a rage:
Till that moment the navvy, whose only desire was justice, had kept his temper nobly. Then he went Berserk before our amazed eyes. The door of the lamp-room generously constructed would not give an inch, but the window he tore from its fastenings and hurled outwards. The one porter counted the damage in a loud voice, and the others, arming themselves with agricultural implements from the station garden, kept up a ceaseless winnowing before the window, themselves backed close to the wall, and bade the prisoner think of the gaol. He answered little to the point, so far as they could understand, but, seeing that his exit was impeded, he took a lamp and hurled it through the wrecked sash. It fell on the metals and went out. With inconceivable velocity the others, fifteen in all, followed, looking like rockets in the gloom; and with the last (he could have had no plan) the Berserk rage left him as the doctor’s deadly brewage waked up under the stimulus of violent exercise and a very full meal to one last cataclysmal exhibition, and we heard the whistle of the 7:45.
Sources:
“The Gleaner, No. XV.” Edinburgh Magazine, or Literary Miscellany, January 1800, 3/2. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Herbert, William. “The Combat of Hialmar and Oddur” (1803). Select Icelandic Poetry, vol. 1. London: T. Reynolds, 1804, 71, 82–83. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Kipling, Rudyard. “The Child of Calamity.” Argus (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 30 March 1895, 4/5. NewspaperArchive.com.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. berserk | berserker, n.
Scott, Walter. “Notes on Kempion.” Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. 3 of 3. Edinburgh, James Ballantyne, 1806, 32. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Turner, Sharon. The History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. 1. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 1807, 210. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Zoëga. Geir T. A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910, s.v. berserkr, n., 50. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Image credit: Sören Hallgren, 1996. Statens Historiska Museer, Stockholm. Wikimedia Commons. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.