Chess pieces, engraved in walrus ivory, produced probably in Norway around 1150-1200 and discovered on Lewis Island, in the Outer Hebrides, off the North-western coast of Scotland. Now they are in the British Museum, London.
Though they belong to a later period, these objects are highly influenced by Norse pre-Christian culture: in particular, the rooks and bishops have been shaped in a way recalling the berserkr warriors of Germanic tradition. Snorri reports how these warriors, fighting in Odin’s retinue, “went without armor and were crazed as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, were strong as bears or bulls. They killed men [enemies], but neither fire nor iron affected them. That is called going berserk” (Ynglinga Saga, 6).
The terrific effects of these possessed warriors had been already reported by Tacitus, in his description of the continental Germans:
“The Harii, apart from the strength in which they surpass the peoples just enumerated, are fierce in nature, and trick out this natural ferocity by the help of art and season: they blacken their shields and dye their bodies; they choose pitchy nights for their battles; by sheer panic and darkness they strike terror like an army of ghosts. No enemy can face this novel and, as it were, phantasmal vision” (Germania, 43, transl. by W. Peterson).


[Image: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/t/the _lewis_chessmen.aspx]