Did Norse berserkers use drugs before battle? If so, what drugs did they use?

youtube.com/watch?v=qu7II24go98

Now post a real historian

>Now post a real (((historian)))

There's this thing called "alcohol" that would have much the same effect. Thing is, it's generally a terrible idea to go into a fight on drugs, because keeping a clear head is extremely important for avoiding death by stabbing.

mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/1050/what-did-cuchulainns-warp-spasm-look-like

And how does this prove the Celts came up with it?

You need all of your faculties when running into a group of angry bodybuilders holding sharp objects. I promise.

It's much more likely that they were psyched up on pre-fight shittalking and a slightly-above-baseline bac.

Source: poorly spent childhood.

Berserkers probably didn't exist. It doesn't even make sense militarily to have someone like that. If you have someone that blacks out and goes crazy in battle, that means you have an undisciplined soldier that will ignore orders and break rank in battle.

But weren't single combats pretty important too in germanic (and therefore nordic) culture?

>Wouldn't certain drugs enhance your ability to endure pain and battle
amphetamines, sort of, but psychedelics, definitely not. Eating shrooms before battle would be a genuinely awful idea, there would be almost nothing worse

>But say they did something like cocaine or meth
they didn't have coke or meth. In any case, coke would be a bad combat drug because in its pure form it's too euphoric

I'm no expert on germanics, but ancient indo-aryan warriors consummed the product of the soma/haoma plant before battle. It's a pretty important thing in their mythology.

Could the basic idea of the berserkers be partly inspired by an older proto-indo-european mythos?

Where's Loid when you need him?

The only account I know of soldiers taking drugs before a battle was the Battle of Watling Street, where it was said the British Celts got drunk before the battle so they could work themselves up into a rage and as some sort of ritual (they lost badly). Perhaps someone else knows better.

In modern wars this is and was very common. Meth for fighter pilots, vodka for soviet soldiers and so on.

Personally I think you should also count painkillers. Knowing that a medic can stop your pain and help you is reassuring.

>meth
>greatest meth head in history made the retarded strategic blunder of invading the Western Europe and the USSR at the same time
Chemically induced overconfidence leads to disasturous mistakes

They didn't. Going berserk is a millenia-old trope all Indogermanic people have. Greeks called it "Lyssa" ("wolf-rage") iirc, for example.

>American education

Infusion of Elks Penis with a few other inert compounds. Penis was the active ingredient

They could have taken a brew/mix of drugs which brought out the best attributes for battle. Soma was commonly taken before battle in proto-europian times.

I notice on this board alot of people don't realize the amount of European drug history that has been lost with the introduction of Christianity. For example whitch hunting was the removal of the last remnants of drug use in Euro culture.

>Berserkers probably didn't exist
They probably did exist as elite soldiers of sorts, it's the "berserker rage" that's likely a misconception.

Germanic tribes used to mix all kinds of herbs into their "beer"
One popular mixture contained Henbane (german: Bilsenkraut --> Bilsenbier --> Pilsener), an nightshade causing deliriant states and true hallucinations (you cannot tell apart what is physically real and what not)
There were recipes for all kinds of desired effects: partying, knocking yourself out, aphrodisiac, medicinal...

I don't think it is unrealistic that these tribes found ways to help induce a blind battle rage with plants or fungi.

Most of the knowledge about these plants vanished and the substance would have been a secret of the warrior cast anyway. So it's really just speculation and we will probably never know.

Soma in it's original form was most likely Peganum harmala (Hamoa, Syrian Rue containing MAO-I) combined with Acacia sp. (containing DMT)

A lack of source plants in Europe would most likely lead to using substitutes.
The closest you can get is Psilocybe semilanceata (liberty cap containing psilocyn & psilocybin aka 4HO-DMT)

Maybe they used a preparation with this and other substances to be able to tap out of normal human state of consciousness and into the "mind of a bear".

Amanita muscaria is an unlikely candidate. The Fly agaric is more of tranquillizer than something inducing rage. it also impairs motor function, something you don't want in battle.

Germanic warriors were not a professional disciplined army with top down command structures and sophisticated battle tactics.
They met at the battle field, exchanged some shittalk and then stormed each other in a mob.

If you get some warriors in a state of blind rage and manage to let them run in the right direction, they can smash a breach into the enemies ranks and you can follow and mob up behind them.

There is also a big psychological effect, when everyone believed that they would shift into a bear and become incredibly strong and really really hard to stop and kill.

The only drugs widely know by norse society would have made the body weaker. They knew of anticholingerics and amanitas. You dont go into battle on such things....you poison your enemies with it.

Reading the sagas on berserkers, their strange behaviour seems moreso like:

A) hype-up ritual practices (for berserkers in the field)

B) ptsd (berserkers at home).

Shrooms (psilocybin mushrooms) arent known in the old world until after the new world was discovered, unless you follow mckenna's contrived circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

The reason indo-aryans have that myth is because soma is the ephedra plant. Ephedra doesnt occur in the PIE urheimat, so you only see it in indo-aryan sources.

Ephedra is a powerful stimulant.

When Albert Hofmann was working on the pharmacology of the newly discovered Psilocybe mexicana, he was approached by an old mountain farmer that gave him a few mushrooms and said these might be interesting for him.
He tested them and found Psilocybin. The mushroom in question was Psilocybe semilanceata the liberty cap.

So there was knowledge of psilocybe mushrooms in the alps that survived to the 20th century.

Probably whatever their druids used to get into their religous trances.

>Well obviously
I disagree mushrooms can make you feel energized and invincible.
Obviously cocaine and meth weren't available.

>It doesn't even make sense
That's exactly why it was so effective. It was unexpected, surprise or intimidation in battle can be an important deciding factor.

Not true, when I do mushrooms I feel like I can take on the world. Is it a coincidence that I'm also nordic? Everyone reacts to drugs differently, maybe someone else's experience is different than yours, ever think of that?

That wouldn't surprise me. There are a lot of commonalities, but cultures can change pretty drastically over short periods of time. It might just be convergent evolution.

I would love to see some evidence of psylocibin mushrooms existing in the old world prior to Columbus.

Psilocybe semilanceata is native to Europe.

It grew on pastures 2000 years ago same as today.

All they had to do was find it in between the grass and try a few.

Albert hoffman lived before the discovery of the new world?

No, Albert Hofman was the first to study the mushroom.

The mushroom was already there for a much longer time

>They met at the battle field, exchanged some shittalk and then stormed each other in a mob
This is such bullshit. No army in the history of warfare has ever just not used tactics.