Bronze plates, which were originally a decoration of ceremonial helmets, found in the territory of Torslunda, Öland island, off Sweden’s Southern shore. The objects date at 550-730 A.D. and are now housed in the National Historical Museum (Statens Historiska Museum), Stockholm, Sweden. The image on the left shows two berserkr warriors, one with a horned helmet and two spears in his hands, apparently dancing, and the other while “transforming” himself into a wolf. The image on the right shows two armed men, with their helmet surmounted by a boar, an animal which was associated with the warrior function because of its fierceness.
The berserkr were ferocious warriors, who assumed animal characteristics and were believed to be able to turn into fierce animals, like bears or wolves. The úlfhednar wore wolf-skins and took on themselves the characteristics of these animals. In the poem Haraldskvædi, attributed to the skald (Scandinavian court poet) Thorbjörn Hornklofi, these warriors are described in this way: “The berserks howled, battle was on their minds, the wolf-skins growled and shook their spears”; “They are called wolf-skins, who in battle carry bloody shields; they redden spears when they come to battle” (cit. in Lindow 2002, p. 75). This warriors were particularly associated to Odin and probably they formed an order of ecstatic fighters, whose practice included forms of altered states of consciousness, during which they believed to be transformed into wild beasts. An indication of this kind of warrior worship can be found in the supposed etymology of the name Odin (from proto-Germanic *woÞanaz), meaning originally “leader of the possessed” (Lindow 2005a).


[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Torslunda_helmet_plate_patrices]