Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Paul Mishing controlled decans. Most importantly, you are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: This evening, folks, we are returning to a bit of
Speaker 3: a continuing obsession legendary mysterious fighters from ages past. Please
Speaker 3: do check out our earlier series on assassins and our
Speaker 3: recent episode on the Night's Templar. But tonight, this evening,
Speaker 3: we're asking a question that haunted Western history for centuries.
Speaker 3: What on earth were the Viking beerze Kerra? Were they real?
Speaker 3: Here are the facts? I mean, before we do any
Speaker 3: of this, we have to talk about the Vikings, because
Speaker 3: those guys got a They're very popular in pop culture,
Speaker 3: but I think they got a short shrift in the
Speaker 3: historical record.
Speaker 4: Remember that song and I think it was Clerks Sor
Speaker 4: it's Jay and Son Bob and he's.
Speaker 3: Like something something something some berserk to to to t
Speaker 3: tou tou berserk.
Speaker 4: They say some naughty words in there, but they have
Speaker 4: the first time I heard the word berserker, I guess
Speaker 4: it's a very metal concepts, which makes sense for Vikings.
Speaker 3: It stays with us, you know, like you'll you'll occasionally
Speaker 3: hear in modern English, you'll hear somebody went berserk, and
Speaker 3: it's uh, it's sometimes a compliment, but it all harkens
Speaker 3: back to again, this thing that is sometimes described as
Speaker 3: the special forces of the Viking culture. And I think
Speaker 3: to really understand this, to get into it, we kind
Speaker 3: of have to talk about the Vikings. Like before we
Speaker 3: went on air today, we were just shooting the breeze
Speaker 3: as we do before we record, and we're talking about
Speaker 3: music that we like you were saying, no, we're talking
Speaker 3: about music that we found harkening back to the berserks. Matt,
Speaker 3: what was that?
Speaker 2: What was that song you hit us to as from?
Speaker 2: I think you say donheim d A n h E
Speaker 2: I M. The name of that song was, Oh, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pronounce it wrong. It's whispered in the song ulf
Speaker 2: I don't know how to say it right, or something
Speaker 2: like that. They say, like, it's very interesting. It's just
Speaker 2: it's this music that it's Norse folk music, and it
Speaker 2: goes deep into my body and it resonates something that's
Speaker 2: in there that you guys, it kind of makes me nervous, Like, bro,
Speaker 2: I it sends shivers through my body. I get goosebumps
Speaker 2: and I feel like warmth. I'm like, what are you
Speaker 2: awakening in me? Bro?
Speaker 3: Stop it?
Speaker 2: But then you shared a song.
Speaker 3: What was that one? Oh highlung? Yeah, the so there
Speaker 3: is a there's a bit of a like housetuff works
Speaker 3: backstory to that. So we are people with abiding interest
Speaker 3: and very weird specific things that is true, that is known.
Speaker 3: And the song we were sharing there is called Hilong
Speaker 3: Norupo n O Rgupo. It is a re enactment or
Speaker 3: a song inspired by the idea of religious ceremonies occurring
Speaker 3: before a conflict.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, there's something in there. There's something in there.
Speaker 4: We'll speaking of stuff that gives shivers. Does this ring
Speaker 4: a bell, guys?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 4: They come from the land of the ice and snow,
Speaker 4: from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. The
Speaker 4: hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands.
Speaker 4: To fight the Horde, sing and cry Valhalla, I am coming.
Speaker 3: And image. A lot of this is inspired by this
Speaker 3: actual group, this culture that did exist. The Vikings are
Speaker 3: legendary in their own right if you're looking at the facts.
Speaker 3: These folks were a seafaring culture from what we will
Speaker 3: call Denmark, Norway and Sweden today. Why do we keep
Speaker 3: calling them legendary? Why do they inspire so much Western
Speaker 3: culture and indeed, why do they inspire so much Eastern anime?
Speaker 3: Shout out to the nerds in the crowd, it's because
Speaker 3: we don't know a ton about them. Like even the
Speaker 3: etymology Okay, there's a bit of a ride, but please
Speaker 3: go here. Even the etymology of the word Viking is uncertain.
Speaker 3: The prevailing scholarly conclusion is that it comes from the
Speaker 3: old Norse word viking gear, which usually is taken to
Speaker 3: mean pirate or raider, which makes sense because they raided
Speaker 3: a ton of places.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can see that that reflected in the
Speaker 2: imagery of popular culture. Right if you close your eyes
Speaker 2: and you imagine a Viking. For me, it's on a ship,
Speaker 2: one of those very characteristically quote Viking ships, and they
Speaker 2: are on their way to shore, to perform a raid. Right,
Speaker 2: that's like, I think that's the thing we see we
Speaker 2: were talking about the Assassin's Creed, what has it been Valhalla,
Speaker 2: the imagery on the front of that game, and just
Speaker 2: how that is the quintessential version at least that the
Speaker 2: West the way the West portrays what a Viking.
Speaker 3: Is, and a lot of us, of course, or thinking
Speaker 3: of Elmer Fudd and bugs Bunny the Valkyrie is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Wagner indeed he was fascinated by that too, for
Speaker 4: some maybe problematic reasons. There's also a lot of associations
Speaker 4: with Vikings with you know, white supremacy.
Speaker 3: But no way, Yeah, it's true, we get out of
Speaker 3: here with those conspiracy theories. Is absolutely correct by the
Speaker 3: way he is.
Speaker 2: But it is an image of that type of human
Speaker 2: being in a form of power, right, profection and almost
Speaker 2: and fear. We're going to get into that, right, a
Speaker 2: symbol of fear.
Speaker 3: The hyperborean concept that would later inform, uh inform a
Speaker 3: lot of racist area ideologies. Right. So I do have
Speaker 3: a pitch for favorite etymological theory on the Vikings. Uh.
Speaker 3: The words origin could be traced to Old English and
Speaker 3: Old Frisian uh vising with a w or vising also
Speaker 3: with a w h. And these words are about three
Speaker 3: hundred years older than the old Norse words. And if
Speaker 3: this theory is true, if then game, then vising and
Speaker 3: vising probably derived from vic, which is related to the
Speaker 3: Latin Latin word vicus, which means village or habitation. So
Speaker 3: logically we could say that viking ultimately means Paul. I
Speaker 3: don't know if we can afford the sound cube, but
Speaker 3: here we go. The village people nice rate at the
Speaker 3: MC brother. It's funny too.
Speaker 4: I always go down these silly coper usually incorrect itmological
Speaker 4: rabbit holes, but the German word for white is vice,
Speaker 4: so just better thrown that out there.
Speaker 2: That's I think that's kind of blowing my mind, man,
Speaker 2: because I'm getting an image of what we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about here with the berserker, specifically some of the
Speaker 2: bear chested, bare chested fighting, some of the like almost
Speaker 2: not sexualized, but the very I don't know, bear male
Speaker 2: masculinity going into battle because there's some form of in
Speaker 2: vulnerability perceived by like having fewer clothes and armor on hyperchats,
Speaker 2: and then just now I'm just imagining that like vibe
Speaker 2: that you get from the band the Village People.
Speaker 3: That Okay, yeah, they were a group of renegade folklorees
Speaker 3: before they began. I think so their boy band, so
Speaker 3: I like it too. We're going to see all these
Speaker 3: threads come together in a in a weird tapestry in
Speaker 3: tonight's episode from the late eighth century CE to about
Speaker 3: the late eleventh century. So like, right when the crew
Speaker 3: Usades are popping off, vikings are this massive expansionary force.
Speaker 3: These guys were all over the place. These men and women,
Speaker 3: by the way, were all over the place raiding, but
Speaker 3: they were also trading. They were also settling and attempting
Speaker 3: to create new communities for their culture. They got so
Speaker 3: far they went to the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East.
Speaker 3: They were probably the first Europeans to create a settlement
Speaker 3: in North America. They called Newfoundland, Vinland or Winland, and
Speaker 3: this was once treated as a conspiracy. Turns out it's true.
Speaker 4: One more quick line from a Zeppelin song on we
Speaker 4: sweep with thrashing or our only goal will be the
Speaker 4: western Shore.
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, it's like the image there, dude.
Speaker 2: What was that episode we did where we were looking
Speaker 2: back at early North American exploration outside of indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: that were it was a gosh, I can't remember the
Speaker 2: name of it. You'll have to like search back through
Speaker 2: our our shows. But we covered theories about early early
Speaker 2: expansion into what we call in North America now by
Speaker 2: people who would be maybe described in this way like Norse, Viking, whatever. Fascinating.
Speaker 2: They're fascinating potential artifacts that date back to that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man.
Speaker 3: Also my favorite, like hanging out off air conspiracy, there
Speaker 3: is the idea that what was that Eric the Red
Speaker 3: conspired to mislead people in his explorations by calling the
Speaker 3: icy waste Greenland, Yeah, and by calling the one place
Speaker 3: you could live up there Iceland. Don't go there, don't
Speaker 3: go Yeah, that's so fun. I always figured it's not.
Speaker 2: The most beautiful place you've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Right right, It's no small barred islands. But for centuries,
Speaker 3: Vikings were pretty misunder stood for a lot of us,
Speaker 3: as Noel, Matt and I have described today and as
Speaker 3: you are doubtlessly imagining in your mind, there is a
Speaker 3: very clear imagistic association evocation when you hear the word
Speaker 3: Viking like a hairy, horned helmet wearing marauder murdering and
Speaker 3: pillaging his or her way up the European coast. And
Speaker 3: it's just like endless cycle of raids and mercenary violence.
Speaker 3: And usually the villain in those cases is portrayed as illiterate, uncultured, barbaric.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing that's not entirely true. Vikings did
Speaker 3: make inscriptions in ruins, but a lot of it was
Speaker 3: like graffiti. Some of the earliest graffiti in fact is
Speaker 3: it translates to English as something like Wagner was here,
Speaker 3: and it's in ruins. And because literacy, as we understand
Speaker 3: it was very late to the Viking game, a lot
Speaker 3: of the history about Vikings was written centuries later by
Speaker 3: descendants of their victims, their rivals, their enemies. It's kind
Speaker 3: of like stories about the Night Templar. To be honest, I.
Speaker 2: Can see the similarities there. It really goes back to
Speaker 2: the scant amount of historical artifacts, right, the actual things
Speaker 2: written down, actual things, what chiseled into stone somewhere.
Speaker 3: There's like a couple, Yeah, yeah, there's stuff, Like there's
Speaker 3: stuff like Eric is cool? Who was ERICQ? The History Channel?
Speaker 3: Eric with a K no doubt, Eric with a K
Speaker 3: no doubt.
Speaker 4: But like you know, these folks didn't just like randomly
Speaker 4: decide to rape and pillage their way across the globe.
Speaker 3: Like there were real.
Speaker 4: Reasons, functional reasons for this expansion, right Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that you point that out, man, because history
Speaker 3: loves a very clear good and a very bad, and
Speaker 3: unfortunately that's not how the real world works. The Viking communities,
Speaker 3: what we call the Viking culture, that expansion, that cycle
Speaker 3: of raids and pillaging, it was triggered by multiple social factors,
Speaker 3: and I would say also ecological factors overpopulation, resource demand
Speaker 3: at home. And then also again, they're not like the
Speaker 3: super best people. They were noticing that nearby communities or
Speaker 3: cultures that they could touch with their naval acumen. Those
Speaker 3: communities were also struggling with similar domestic problems. They were
Speaker 3: surviving in the wake of chaos, the wake of instability.
Speaker 3: They were easy to get and so they got got.
Speaker 4: Do you guys think that because of the nature of
Speaker 4: just survival and the difficulty of living in this type
Speaker 4: of time, that there would have been maybe a shorter
Speaker 4: some of quote unquote good people because people didn't have
Speaker 4: the luxury of being good. It was very doggy dog
Speaker 4: I just I don't know. I think about this sometimes.
Speaker 3: It's a good question. I mean to answer that we
Speaker 3: would have to put in the piece of xenophobia, like
Speaker 3: what do you consider also a peer member of humanity?
Speaker 3: And that's something that humans continue to struggle with today. Thankfully.
Speaker 3: One good thing about the age of abiquitous information is
Speaker 3: that there are slightly more opportunities for empathy. But to
Speaker 3: your point, Noel, in terms of good or bad, that's
Speaker 3: often sort of a tinplate rationalization. The idea of absolute
Speaker 3: good and absolute bad is kind of a convenience.
Speaker 4: The stuff of stories too. Really, it's an easy narrative.
Speaker 3: Device, you know, Yeah, yeah, I mean think about it.
Speaker 3: You know, you're you're just a regular farmer like everybody else.
Speaker 3: You're just a humble farmer, like in that excellent film.
Speaker 3: We got a couple of emails.
Speaker 4: It's up you've upgraded it.
Speaker 3: I think it's a movie. He's a humble farmer, boy,
Speaker 3: is he? Ever?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: H imagine you're this person and you know you're you're
Speaker 3: breaking your heart over growing whatever crop you can grow,
Speaker 3: and that all of a sudden in the distance, you
Speaker 3: hear a deep resonant horn. Paul, can we get a
Speaker 3: scared perfect, and then you're here like howling, Paul, can
Speaker 3: we get some howling the animals? Yeah, and then you
Speaker 3: look out across the coast and you see some ships.
Speaker 3: That's how people encountered Viking. So no wonder they thought
Speaker 3: they were monsters and maybe not quite human, look like.
Speaker 4: Monsters with those outfits, right, I mean, if you're in
Speaker 4: a place of superstition, this invading horror that you've never
Speaker 4: witnessed before, they're literally decked out with devilish kind of
Speaker 4: get ups, and you might well believe that they're supernatural
Speaker 4: or not of this world.
Speaker 2: But again, is that actually how they were dressed when
Speaker 2: they came through? And how much of that is myth?
Speaker 2: How much of that is psychological force projection? Which artifacts?
Speaker 2: Though of these type of things, don't we is horned
Speaker 2: some of them, the historical.
Speaker 3: Record is pretty pretty scant. Again, like the horned helmets
Speaker 3: just don't make a lot of sense in realistic combat.
Speaker 3: Like it's there's a reason that most of the MMA
Speaker 3: fighters you know, and most of the boxers you know
Speaker 3: don't have long hair, they don't have a bunch of
Speaker 3: stuff on their head, because when you are in malay
Speaker 3: situations or melee situations. That's an opportunity to grab something
Speaker 3: and introduce you to a kneecap. You know. True, so
Speaker 3: they probably I don't know about the kneecaps, but anyway,
Speaker 3: like horned helmets, we know they became. It's kind of
Speaker 3: like how Coca Cola made the image of Santa Claus, right,
Speaker 3: the horned helmets association with Vikings. There are some ancient
Speaker 3: artifacts horns, primarily like horns like Paul just played that
Speaker 3: have some engravings of people who appear to have horns.
Speaker 3: But the idea of all Vikings wearing horns on their
Speaker 3: helmets as a uniform comes about because of Wagner. It
Speaker 3: comes about specifically in eighteen seventy six because Wagner had
Speaker 3: a costume designer named Carl Emil Doppler, and Carl was
Speaker 3: great at costumes, maybe not so much historical accuracy.
Speaker 4: Well, either way, what we do know is that they
Speaker 4: are get ups. Whatever they may have been exactly, they
Speaker 4: were going for a show of force and intimidation. And
Speaker 4: I think that Egger's film The Northman, he's really well
Speaker 4: known for really getting historical details right. Like in The
Speaker 4: Witch they used like old English texts and stuff for
Speaker 4: the dialogue. But I've read in multiple places that the
Speaker 4: visuals like they had, like their teeth would be engraved
Speaker 4: into like and it's a they got that detail in
Speaker 4: the film, and a lot of the outfits and armor
Speaker 4: and stuff, no horns I I don't believe in the
Speaker 4: film are apparently pretty period accurate.
Speaker 3: And it also depends, like period accuracy is tricky because
Speaker 3: like even unto whether or not Viking communities had tattoos,
Speaker 3: we know the technology was present, but we don't know
Speaker 3: whether they engaged in it. Because again, when you have
Speaker 3: a community that is only putting written records in ruins,
Speaker 3: then you're kind of like trying to base your understanding
Speaker 3: of a culture on their graffiti. It's sort of like asking,
Speaker 3: you know, it's sort of like it's sort of like saying, hey,
Speaker 3: you're a historian hundreds of year in the future, what
Speaker 3: can you tell us about America? The only record we have,
Speaker 3: by the way, is stuff written in barroom bathrooms, So like,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a there's an emphasis then on perhaps
Speaker 3: the wrong things.
Speaker 4: These folks were crass, These folks a lot of ding dongs.
Speaker 3: These folks had a love of Pallas. Yeah, and not
Speaker 3: every Obviously, not every Norse person was a Viking, just
Speaker 3: like how most of the templars at their height were
Speaker 3: not warrior monks. You know, there was a lot of infrastructure.
Speaker 3: I mean, the blood eagle thing is probably super embellish.
Speaker 3: The nicknames like Ivar the Boneless and Ragnar hairy Breeches,
Speaker 3: those were made up years and years after those biological
Speaker 3: humans were well god typos, mistranslations, misunderstandings. There's one legend
Speaker 3: that we think deserves closer scrutiny. What about the you're
Speaker 3: what about this.
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Before we get to that ben you said, blood eagle.
Speaker 2: Let's just quickly describe it. If you're listening to this
Speaker 2: and you've got kids in the car or something, skip
Speaker 2: forward fifteen seconds.
Speaker 3: What's the work? Go quick easily? Yeah, okay. So the
Speaker 3: blood Eagle, as popularized by the History Channel, its weird
Speaker 3: right by the History Channel's program The Viking or just vikings.
Speaker 3: I think it is according to the stories, it's a
Speaker 3: method of ritual execution, and it's it's laid out in
Speaker 3: the written record in poetry, which is open to interpretation.
Speaker 3: But the idea is help me here, guys. The idea
Speaker 3: is that you would sever the ribs of your victim
Speaker 3: from the spine, right, with some sort of bladed instruments.
Speaker 2: Yes, with someone laying down on their stomach, basically right, and.
Speaker 3: Then you would pull their lungs back and out and
Speaker 3: stretch them such that they created a pair of grizzly wings.
Speaker 4: If you want to see it, picked a pretty grizzly.
Speaker 4: It's in the film Midsommar by Ari Astor. No spoilers
Speaker 4: as to who receives the blood Eagle, but it is
Speaker 4: very much fully on display.
Speaker 3: And when you get introduced to the characters in Midsummer, Yeah,
Speaker 3: just guess which one that'll that'll make it pretty despicably obnoxious.
Speaker 3: So how would we describe berserkers specifically, because they were
Speaker 3: not your average vikings according to the stories.
Speaker 4: Maybe what you might think of as a tank in
Speaker 4: a D and D party, right, the biggest and burliest,
Speaker 4: like a barbarian.
Speaker 3: Two handed weapon wielder.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe sometimes they might have issue, you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: they might have two little hatchets. Sometimes they might have
Speaker 3: a big battle axe. Then they might be nude, right,
Speaker 3: The main thing is they're naked. The main thing is
Speaker 3: you can see they're junk, so they are but they're
Speaker 3: they're clad in animal skins, right. Conventionally it's supposed to
Speaker 3: be a bear skin, but it may also be any
Speaker 3: other large predator. So we know Viking communities respected bears,
Speaker 3: but also wolves also, you know, large wild dogs. And
Speaker 3: and to think with those guys is they're so ten
Speaker 3: toes down, they're so pawsed down on this that when
Speaker 3: it is time to tangle, they kill whomever is in
Speaker 3: front of them, even a friendly force. They're just swinging.
Speaker 3: They're they're like bullets, you know, and the ships like
Speaker 3: the gun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean, but like they likely many of
Speaker 4: them wouldn't survive because of their lack of armor. They
Speaker 4: really were almost like comic cop type situations, you know.
Speaker 4: And again just to reference the North the Northmen, they
Speaker 4: take a lot of psychedelics in that film, a lot
Speaker 4: of like weird you know, described psychedelic herbs or whatever.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be surprised if some of these berserkers were
Speaker 4: also hopped up on some kind of go go juice.
Speaker 3: That's the idea. The main differentiation you've hit on it
Speaker 3: is that they encounter some sort of disassociative mental state,
Speaker 3: a feugue, a trance that gives them temporarily something like
Speaker 3: a super soldier Captain America ask abilities. They take damage
Speaker 3: that would incapacitate the average person, indeed, the average Viking.
Speaker 3: They continue to fight on and they don't stop until
Speaker 3: the battle is done. The trance leaves and if and
Speaker 3: then they're weak, you know, and they're out of it,
Speaker 3: we would say shock. I think most medical professionals would
Speaker 3: call it these days. And if they do survive, if
Speaker 3: they do not succumb to their wounds, they also have
Speaker 3: short form amnesia. They have no recollection of what just happened.
Speaker 3: So imagine it's like the trope from every Western werewolf film,
Speaker 3: right or most of the I would say, the good
Speaker 3: Western werewolf films. They wake up and they they're covered
Speaker 3: in blood, and they're like, Eric, what happened? What the heck?
Speaker 2: And he's like, good job, dude, And there's all amazing imagery.
Speaker 2: We are describing the story of a berserker, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the myth or the legend or the thing that is
Speaker 2: out there right as what this thing is or could be.
Speaker 2: We're not describing historical you know berserkers.
Speaker 3: The image, yes, the brand, which will become important later
Speaker 3: over the centuries. Scholars wondered whether these warriors were an exaggeration,
Speaker 3: a fabrication, maybe a secret group of drug users, maybe
Speaker 3: a religious sect or wait, what were they even real?
Speaker 3: Questionable answer after a word from our sponsors, Here's where
Speaker 3: it gets crazy. Yes, I mean something like the berserker
Speaker 3: was a real thing. Like there were definitely Viking warriors.
Speaker 3: We know that that happened. They rated a ton of people.
Speaker 3: You can trace that in the DNA of Scandinavia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the word itself is often thought to arrive from
Speaker 4: Old Norse berserker. It's just that the e, which translates
Speaker 4: roughly to bear shirt. But like many of the things
Speaker 4: involved in this tale, not everyone agree. Is you'll often
Speaker 4: hear folks argue that berserker actually means bear shirt, like
Speaker 4: they are e like Matt was a was alluding to
Speaker 4: earlier or bear chested, once again implying the thing we
Speaker 4: mentioned about them, you know, going in commando.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you said, classic D and D Barbarian
Speaker 3: inspiration for anybody who is interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 3: What you need to know is that your barbarian character
Speaker 3: does better when they don't have a ton of armor.
Speaker 3: If you want armor, you're looking for fighter class, paladin,
Speaker 3: a couple types of cleric.
Speaker 4: But you gotta put points into armor, you know, like
Speaker 4: it's a thing like in and of itself, is a
Speaker 4: superpower that you got to kind of cultivate throughout the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it depends on depends on the game. I think
Speaker 3: that's largely accurate. And speaking of depending on the game,
Speaker 3: when we're playing the game of historical accuracy, we quickly
Speaker 3: find that Berserkers as a concept sort of move back
Speaker 3: and forth over the boundary of fantasy and fact. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of speculation about these guys. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of strange stuff out there. And because some of these
Speaker 3: stories were created so long ago, more than a thousand
Speaker 3: years ago, these they're treated as though they are fact.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: You could see sources, numerous sources that claim Berserkers had
Speaker 3: superhuman powers, you know, like you could cut off a leg.
Speaker 3: Oh crap, he's still coming, you know, How is he
Speaker 3: hopping like that? How is he dangerously hopping toward me? Yes?
Speaker 2: Think about how strategically advantageous that would be if you
Speaker 2: could see those stories into the mythology of your army. Right,
Speaker 2: So then when you do show up, when those horns
Speaker 2: do sound off in the distance, right, and you see
Speaker 2: that there are ships heading your way, and you've heard
Speaker 2: stories about that very sound, and you know what's on
Speaker 2: that ship. It's these berserker guys who are gonna get off,
Speaker 2: you know, get off that ship and just immediately go
Speaker 2: ham on everything in sight. That's like, that is terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there may be three hundred of you, but you're
Speaker 3: all usually farmers. There may be only you know, one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty other like operators on this ship. But
Speaker 3: you've heard the stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well maybe it only takes one. And even if
Speaker 2: I do somehow lop off a leg, like you're saying,
Speaker 2: this guy's not gonna stop.
Speaker 3: It's just so funny to me. He's like the most
Speaker 3: dangerous pogo stick in Europe at this point.
Speaker 2: But just that what it would do to effectively have
Speaker 2: people throw down whatever weapons or tools they had and
Speaker 2: just GTFO. And there's a a very sparsely inhabited village
Speaker 2: now that this ship rolls up onto because you've you've
Speaker 2: scared everybody off, like well in advance of actually arriving.
Speaker 3: It's pretty smart. And we know that most people throughout history,
Speaker 3: given the opportunity to learn are incredibly intelligent. I mean also,
Speaker 3: it's funny to me that even in what we know
Speaker 3: about Viking communities, the berserker class is typically not going
Speaker 3: to be considered the cream of the social crop. They're
Speaker 3: in North Sagas. Like in the old school North Sagas,
Speaker 3: scholars often interpret villains as berserker characters, and it all
Speaker 3: goes back to the penchant for killing their own like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's not a war, I'm just hanging out in town.
Speaker 3: Well screw this guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, aren't there stories of them actually kind of
Speaker 2: incorporating themselves into like a nobility, so like into the
Speaker 2: king's circle or whatever, So that it's almost like, I imagine,
Speaker 2: at least from the royalties perspective, having that weapon you're
Speaker 2: talking about, right, and not a nuke necessarily, but or
Speaker 2: a tactical nuke, but it is mad. Yeah. Right, So
Speaker 2: if you if you've got a couple of berserkers on
Speaker 2: your team that you could send in if you wanted to,
Speaker 2: it would be Again for me, it's all about the
Speaker 2: psychological bit, where if if some other king just across
Speaker 2: the way knows that you've got a couple of berserkers
Speaker 2: on lock Uh, They're like, no, I don't want to
Speaker 2: mess with that guy.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, so, berserkers, why are you the way you are?
Speaker 4: What made you this way? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Damn mean, at this point there's there's no hard proof,
Speaker 3: no conclusive proof of what informed this legendary brutality. And
Speaker 3: we owe a big, a big thanks to Peter Pence,
Speaker 3: who is the curator of Danish Prehistory at the Nash
Speaker 3: Museum of Denmark and Denmark's National Museum is one of
Speaker 3: the best sources on Viking lore and Viking history, and
Speaker 3: so what he points out some of the things we
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier. Pence says, again, this phenomenon of berserkers, it's
Speaker 3: primarily known from written medieval era sources, not from the
Speaker 3: Vikings themselves. One of the first written records of what
Speaker 3: we would call berserkers comes from an Icelandic historian who
Speaker 3: lived around twelve hundred, so again, several centuries after this
Speaker 3: era of berserkdom had passed. And this guy, his real
Speaker 3: name is Snorri Stirlson. That's not a real name, that's
Speaker 3: his real name.
Speaker 4: I love that so much, right, and yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: it makes sense at tracks It is Icelandic and lived
Speaker 4: around twelve hundred CE.
Speaker 3: Got it, And he writes to the Berserkers, where.
Speaker 4: A type of almost monk warrior in a way at
Speaker 4: the very least imbued with Odin's wrath and his power
Speaker 4: and blessing or what have you. He says that Odin's
Speaker 4: own men went to battle without coats of mail and
Speaker 4: acted like mad dogs or wolves. They bit their shields
Speaker 4: and were as strong as bears or bulls.
Speaker 3: A lot of animal illusions here.
Speaker 4: They killed people and neither fire nor iron affected them.
Speaker 3: This is called there's their garage.
Speaker 2: Well, you get into that spiritualism thing. A lot of
Speaker 2: it goes back to this concept that we like being naked,
Speaker 2: at least to some extent when in battle, showed your
Speaker 2: enemies that you at least felt invulnerable. And if some
Speaker 2: of them believed some of the legends they thought you
Speaker 2: were invulnerable, then just talking about the leg and keep
Speaker 2: thinking about Poco guy again. But just that concept, right,
Speaker 2: Gosh that like, I don't know, there's something too that
Speaker 2: that goes so deep in this in the spiritual side,
Speaker 2: in the like a like a holy warrior of some
Speaker 2: sort by.
Speaker 4: The gods, yea, by zoos, psychos, you know, the psychos
Speaker 4: that Elden Ring builds where they're basically nude, you know,
Speaker 4: a flex man John.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's my second character.
Speaker 3: But I thought it was solo. Also, there's a there's
Speaker 3: another thing I want to point out here to uh,
Speaker 3: the idea of fighting nude as a sig up still
Speaker 3: occurs in the modern day. You get people out, that's
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: At this point, if I ever get in the street fight,
Speaker 2: that's the first thing I'm doing. Strip.
Speaker 3: Okay, So here, I'm going to give you a tip.
Speaker 3: And this is this is not I shouldn't even say tip,
Speaker 3: but this is the this is okay, let me put
Speaker 3: it this way without compromising any Imagine again, you're that
Speaker 3: farmer and the the vikings are running at you. You
Speaker 3: hear the horn, thanks Paul. You hear the howls, Thank you, Paul.
Speaker 3: And then the people running at you are not just
Speaker 3: naked and screaming and howling at animals, but they have
Speaker 3: visible erections.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I'm gonna work on that one.
Speaker 3: We'll see there we go, all right, Maybe maybe just
Speaker 3: don't get into fights. That's the best way to handle
Speaker 3: a fight is to avoid it in the first place. Well, gosh,
Speaker 3: I'm just picturing sexual.
Speaker 4: Occurred on the battlefield in the midst of it, covered
Speaker 4: in blood, I mean, in some gnarly stuff.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Judge Holden for a new fans of
Speaker 3: blood Meridian. So so to pence this idea from our
Speaker 3: Icelandic historian way way back. It's interesting because as two
Speaker 3: interpretations of berserker, one fighters who go to battle clad
Speaker 3: only in animal skins, and then two fighters who have
Speaker 3: some sort of preternatural, supernatural strength. And the question that
Speaker 3: we've been obviously quarreling with because we are all grown ups,
Speaker 3: is why would you go into battle but naked? It's
Speaker 3: it's the sye up aspect. It always has been. It's
Speaker 3: such a potent psychological weapon. If you're on the other
Speaker 3: side and you've never encountered these people, if you're an
Speaker 3: enemy on the other side, you're thinking, these guys are bonkers,
Speaker 3: they don't give a f and it shows. It shows
Speaker 3: like again, you know, if you've ever been in a
Speaker 3: fight or an interrogation where the first thing you do
Speaker 3: is harm yourself in front of your enemy to establish
Speaker 3: the stakes of the encounter, then that's what's happening here.
Speaker 3: Like if they don't care about their own personal safety.
Speaker 3: What do they think about yours? Are they indeed? Are
Speaker 3: they indeed and vulnerable due to the favor of a god.
Speaker 4: It's like when someone in a film or something allows
Speaker 4: themselves to take a brutal beating and just like eggs
Speaker 4: them on.
Speaker 3: You know, just to show that I'm insane. You know,
Speaker 3: I try.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about everything you guys are saying. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to find instances of a fenciclidine or PCP, like a
Speaker 2: similar chemical that occurs in nature or something like is
Speaker 2: I don't know if there is anything, I can't find
Speaker 2: it in the moment at least, but like something like
Speaker 2: that that would offer that dissociative thing we talked about,
Speaker 2: but also the altered state to where pain perception goes
Speaker 2: way down right, and all the things we're describing here.
Speaker 3: We have drugs at home, says the human brain, right
Speaker 3: like you can you can create We'll get to that,
Speaker 3: but you can create that. The thing is also we
Speaker 3: have to bust a little bit of a myth. These
Speaker 3: guys probably weren't just running around butt naked with bone.
Speaker 3: They had weapons, they had shields, and according to Peter Pence,
Speaker 3: again one of the best sources on this. Wolf skin
Speaker 3: and bear skin do offer some protection against bladed weapons,
Speaker 3: I just not as much as armor. But also on
Speaker 3: a financial standpoint, it's easier to at this point to
Speaker 3: kill an animal and wear its skin than it is
Speaker 3: to craft armor, which is quite expensive in terms of resources,
Speaker 3: time and finance.
Speaker 4: Really quickly too, back to the potential drugs that they
Speaker 4: might have been taking. I found an interview with David Eggers,
Speaker 4: the director of the Northman Or. He talks about the
Speaker 4: historical evidence of this, and it's something called henbane. Henbane
Speaker 4: seeds were found in some Viking graves of folks who
Speaker 4: were known to be serruses or witbals rats.
Speaker 3: Exactly right, Ad, you can tell which direction we're heading in,
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist, We're going to take a pause for
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsor, and then we're going to
Speaker 3: explore the most legendary part of the story, the origins
Speaker 3: of the berserker rage. We've returned. Over the centuries, there
Speaker 3: have been multiple theories about this legendary rage or what
Speaker 3: could have originally inspired it. In general, we can trace
Speaker 3: it to three primary paths of speculation, and to be
Speaker 3: completely clear, as a bit of a disclaimer, there's some
Speaker 3: sticky stuff in here. We're not personally condoning it, nor
Speaker 3: do we personally agree with it, but you need to
Speaker 3: know the scholarship. The first one is religious fervor, Like,
Speaker 3: what if these guys just got so hyped up, right,
Speaker 3: inner circle of odin are we are the tip of
Speaker 3: the spear? We are not for ourselves but for something larger,
Speaker 3: indeed our God. Could that have inspired this rage? Could
Speaker 3: you have been so consumed by this idea that you
Speaker 3: would have been able to ignore revis injury like losing
Speaker 3: a hand, you know, like the god tyr or you know,
Speaker 3: losing a leg or something like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going back to the Templars episode. It
Speaker 2: feels similar to that, right, where if you have enough
Speaker 2: conviction about your purpose, of the purpose of battle in
Speaker 2: the moment and in general, I think you I think
Speaker 2: the human mind can go past a lot of things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, physicality, I mean, belief is a hell of
Speaker 4: a drug, right m m.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's surprising too, the association of bears and
Speaker 3: wolves with elite warriors in what we'll call Scandinavia today
Speaker 3: that far predates the age of Vikings. In the beginning,
Speaker 3: it appears that this idea of a religious Berserker level
Speaker 3: was linked to the concept of an inner circle of
Speaker 3: Odin or Voden worshippers, and as time went on, the
Speaker 3: religious links became less prominent and these guys became more
Speaker 3: like your ordinary warrior of the day. And look, okay,
Speaker 3: so sounds crazy. Sure. We have to recognize though, that
Speaker 3: religious indoctrination can be very powerful. Members of modern cultic
Speaker 3: organizations can be manipulated into acts they would not commit otherwise.
Speaker 3: So I think there's some sand to this. We just
Speaker 3: don't know how far it goes into the physiological aspects
Speaker 3: of the legend.
Speaker 4: Well, and Ben, you mentioned also that some of these
Speaker 4: folks maybe were not exactly the cream of the crop
Speaker 4: in terms of their ability to do other things which
Speaker 4: you likely could interpret as mental health issues. Yeah, perhaps
Speaker 4: developmental issues of some kind. And then because of the
Speaker 4: lack of sensitivity around those sorts of things, they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're perfect, let's give you up, big boy.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, this is the sticky one. This is
Speaker 3: more controversial, but there are scholars arguing Berserker were handpicked
Speaker 3: on the basis of what we today would recognize as
Speaker 3: mental health issues. The argument is, like, let's say there
Speaker 3: are people, there are people in the community who have
Speaker 3: what we will call schizotypal conditions, right, schizophrenia, disassociative disorders,
Speaker 3: and so on, And then the argument is that instead
Speaker 3: of executing them for witchcraft or like aanthropy, the way
Speaker 3: so much of Europe later did, the leaders of these
Speaker 3: communities would say, heck, yeah, man, you really are an animal,
Speaker 3: and I've got a for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, let's okay. It goes back to psychological warfare,
Speaker 2: both exterior that we're talking about with the deaths, but
Speaker 2: and interior, right, bringing some like really creating something like
Speaker 2: that monster. Yeah, like your own golm. But it's a
Speaker 2: human being that just had you know, suffers from dissociative states,
Speaker 2: that is also really strong.
Speaker 3: Turned on their masters. Of course, it's not your fault, bro,
Speaker 3: you were a bear at the.
Speaker 2: Time like that because it's so uncomfortable, But I could
Speaker 2: I can see that functioning with these these two religious
Speaker 2: fervor plus these mental health issues. If only you could
Speaker 2: add one more thing, law and order vikings.
Speaker 3: It's interesting too.
Speaker 4: I mean again, we're talking about all these pop culture
Speaker 4: touch points. But like in the God of War most
Speaker 4: recent God of War game Valhalla Rising, like one of
Speaker 4: the characters turns into a bear. That's like they're you
Speaker 4: know there there are a lot of transformations into animals,
Speaker 4: but one of the really powerful ones into a bear.
Speaker 3: The proper word for like anthropy, what is it theoanthropy
Speaker 3: or something like that. Shape shifting belief in shape shifting, well,
Speaker 3: not just were wolfrey, it's any type of shape shifting. Yeah, weather,
Speaker 3: so like skin walkers who in across the pond. But
Speaker 3: whether that is metaphorical, metaphysical shape changing, or indeed physiological
Speaker 3: shape changing, the belief is quite common in all the
Speaker 3: cultures in these regions at this time. And this is
Speaker 3: where to your point, Matt, into your earlier foreshadowing, you know,
Speaker 3: this is where we add the third ingredient to the recipe,
Speaker 3: the idea of drugs, the idea that these guys were
Speaker 3: normal folks until they got into the ritualistic ingestion of
Speaker 3: particular forms of hallucinogen or psychedelic It could it's often
Speaker 3: described like you mentioned henbane. A lot of scholars will
Speaker 3: say it could be a combination of herbs or mushrooms,
Speaker 3: ingested in sort of a pre battle amped up ceremony.
Speaker 3: So like right before you play a sports game, you
Speaker 3: get in the huddle.
Speaker 2: Almost like ayahuasca with that altered state, but not not
Speaker 2: super agro exactly.
Speaker 3: Not looking for self actualization, but.
Speaker 2: Imagine the ritualization of something like that. That's why I
Speaker 2: thinking the ayahuasca rituals, where it's something that's very spiritual,
Speaker 2: it's something you do and then you're off to the races.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was depicted in the In the Norsemen to
Speaker 4: the Northman too, there was a scene where they do
Speaker 4: a ritual using this stuff.
Speaker 3: And suck like dougs exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and vulva volva is or so. Anyway, there is
Speaker 3: a shamanistic class in Viking culture. These are what we
Speaker 3: will call the holy folks, the seers, or the Syruses.
Speaker 3: And there is historical precedent because we do know that
Speaker 3: that class ritualistically ingested hallucinogenic substances to arrive at a
Speaker 3: greater spiritual understanding. They were soothsayers, they were clairvoyance. According
Speaker 3: to their communities, they participated in the non material world.
Speaker 3: But there's I think there's logical leap there because none
Speaker 3: of those substances have been found within the bodies of
Speaker 3: like ingested in the bodies of these warriors. They may
Speaker 3: have been buried with them to show that they had
Speaker 3: an appreciation of that shamanistic class. But is it not
Speaker 3: kind of like a future historian saying, in twentieth century
Speaker 3: American society, some people did LSD and cocaine. Therefore all
Speaker 3: marines were always on LSD and cocaine. It's kind of like,
Speaker 3: I think there's a little too much red string connection there. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I feel you. So does it feel to you, guys?
Speaker 4: Like the religious argument is maybe the strongest, because we
Speaker 4: know how that can really transform the mind and make
Speaker 4: you fear fearless, you know, if it's weaponized.
Speaker 3: In that way.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm thinking I haven't seen The Northman yet, guys.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's so good. It's very good. It's time.
Speaker 4: Also, Valhalla Rising, the Nicholas winning Refin movie, is also
Speaker 4: about that same kind of air.
Speaker 3: It's also quite good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking at a clip from The Northman where
Speaker 2: Byork apparently byk plays those witches called the Whispering Cirrus. Yes,
Speaker 2: where I think that's what you're describing here at least
Speaker 2: as what the imagery at least is is looking like
Speaker 2: that to me. And I'm just imagining someone like that
Speaker 2: in your not inner circle, right, but someone in your village,
Speaker 2: in your city where you live. Would that person would
Speaker 2: appear to have lots of power, especially depending on preconceived
Speaker 2: notions and beliefs about you know, all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I can see that manipulation totally being a thing.
Speaker 3: And now they're paying attention to you. Yes, weird audio
Speaker 3: podcasts and no one saw it was a really cool move.
Speaker 3: But there's also a shout out to uh Willem Dafote,
Speaker 3: villain the ws and v's are getting to me anyway.
Speaker 3: He's also one of those examples. And there were the
Speaker 3: idea of these shamans. It was primarily female led, but
Speaker 3: there were male identifying or non binary shamans in the mix.
Speaker 3: That has proven that's part of historical record. If you
Speaker 3: are that person, Uh, if you are considering a career
Speaker 3: in berserkery, uh, there's one thing you have to know.
Speaker 3: And I think there's a piece of the puzzle that
Speaker 3: informs our episode. It wasn't a career for a lot
Speaker 3: of these guys. What if going berserker was not an
Speaker 3: all the time vocation. Peter Pence again one of the
Speaker 3: best sources here. He notes that it may have been
Speaker 3: an initiation ritual. It may have been a thing you
Speaker 3: did once to get your stripes, to make your post,
Speaker 3: to join the gang. So like, hey, you want to
Speaker 3: be down with us? You really? Are you really cool
Speaker 3: with the God of War? My guy? If so, you
Speaker 3: can fight with us the first time, you gotta be naked.
Speaker 3: We don't make the rules. Sorry, we don't make the rules.
Speaker 3: That's God's call.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you have to do this ritual and embody
Speaker 2: the God of War and then you're in. That's fascinating
Speaker 2: to me. I could I could see that as a
Speaker 2: thing or just at least someone who's chosen right you
Speaker 2: again going back to thinking, think about that person, A
Speaker 2: special person chooses you for this mission, and maybe it
Speaker 2: is just to get in, but maybe it's also a
Speaker 2: special thing that like almost as a self sacrifice or
Speaker 2: I see, I see, I see, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 3: A passage, a passage to a higher socioeconomic status. And
Speaker 3: if you die, a one way ticket to Valhalla. And
Speaker 3: not everybody gets to go to the good death.
Speaker 2: But if you don't. You're rewarded here, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can get more freelance gigs in the proto
Speaker 3: Blackwater or Academi or EXI, or for more stability, you can,
Speaker 3: like we said earlier, be a bodyguard for the political class. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then your main job becomes being the dude who
Speaker 3: stands behind the yarl or the king and just makes
Speaker 3: crazy eyes.
Speaker 2: Oh, in psychological warfare, because it's now their tails now
Speaker 2: of you, this berserker that went into battle, enslayed all
Speaker 2: these people, and now all you got to do, as
Speaker 2: you said, Ben, is stand behind the yarl, and everybody
Speaker 2: who looks at the RL sees you and they go,
Speaker 2: oh crap.
Speaker 3: I know that is and then you just yes. And
Speaker 3: the crazy stories they're like, did you really kill all
Speaker 3: those people and eat their livers?
Speaker 2: And then just grunt God and it's and it functions
Speaker 2: to protect the king, the you know, the person running
Speaker 2: the place without actually having to do anything further.
Speaker 3: So, what do we think have we have we laid
Speaker 3: out a good case? I mean.
Speaker 2: I think so. I'm freaked out that that music has
Speaker 2: such an effect on me internally.
Speaker 3: I don't like this.
Speaker 2: I don't want to have been a berserker in a
Speaker 2: past life.
Speaker 4: Guys, you got some bodies on those two hands.
Speaker 3: Maddie, I have not technically nol is. I don't want
Speaker 3: to put you on the spot, bro, but technically I
Speaker 3: believe you're the most Nordic. Yeah, I was once a
Speaker 3: young gentleman. Point well, I would say, with all this
Speaker 3: in mind, we can reasonably conclude at the very least
Speaker 3: the following something like there's a Geitra was real, operating
Speaker 3: both before and during the age of the Vikings. They
Speaker 3: probably did not have superpowers. They were not some weird
Speaker 3: ancestor of Marvel super soldier serum. I personally do think
Speaker 3: the story is more interesting if they were hopped up
Speaker 3: on some kind of drug, but we we don't have
Speaker 3: hard proof. That's not to say it didn't happen, it's
Speaker 3: just to say that there isn't a lot of documentation
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 4: I think too, that the combined with the religious fervor angle,
Speaker 4: the mental illness angle is very interesting because you know,
Speaker 4: there's all kinds of stories about folks who thought they
Speaker 4: were communicating with God, but it turns out they may
Speaker 4: have had schizophrenia or so. We've talked about that on
Speaker 4: the show recently. So can you imagine if someone like
Speaker 4: that was manipulated and like you know, browbeaten into believing
Speaker 4: that they were communicating with God and that those voices
Speaker 4: were voices telling them to kill for the gods, that
Speaker 4: could be turned by Burk at the very least he got.
Speaker 3: Burke, they could have they could have called them buerkers whatever.
Speaker 3: So what seems most likely then is that the combatants
Speaker 3: called berserker today their ranks were probably composed of young
Speaker 3: men seeking wealth and status in society, possibly through intensely
Speaker 3: dangerous positions in raids. In most cases, they were not
Speaker 3: planning to make a career out of doing this every weekend.
Speaker 3: There were exceptions to the rules. Probably your career, yeah right, exactly.
Speaker 3: There were warlords that were there are always a couple of,
Speaker 3: as they would say, bad apples. But one of the
Speaker 3: best pieces for the evidence of the existence of berserkers
Speaker 3: comes in ten fifteen Yarl Eric Hakanasson and Gagas the
Speaker 3: medieval Icelandic stuff. They had a code of law that
Speaker 3: made it illegal to be betzerkiir, and that means that
Speaker 3: they did really exists. There's also a huge like stolen
Speaker 3: valor aspect to this where like, it's really good for
Speaker 3: your job if you're a raider, to have it be
Speaker 3: believed that you were bozekir. Anyway, I think these the
Speaker 3: thing is these exceptions they make a better story than
Speaker 3: the truth. That's what their enemies latch onto when they
Speaker 3: write these history books. And perhaps the best lesson in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four is that we see a very common thing,
Speaker 3: and all too common thing. Power structures can, will and
Speaker 3: do manipulate the vulnerable into very dangerous positions. Sign up, right,
Speaker 3: delce et de koro mest pro patria mori?
Speaker 2: What did which one?
Speaker 3: Did we use that in? What was that?
Speaker 2: Thirteen Days?
Speaker 3: We used that? And no, we used it in.
Speaker 2: One of the things you wrote for this show?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: Maybe it's the English is it is both sweet and
Speaker 3: fitting to die for one's country. It's an old war poem.
Speaker 2: Gosh, I know, I swear, I swear you've used it
Speaker 2: in something that we did that was fictional, that was
Speaker 2: awesome and I can't remember it right now.
Speaker 3: I use it.
Speaker 2: It's an it's an easter egg somewhere that somebody's gonna find.
Speaker 2: I think it also is a lesson about the psychological
Speaker 2: warfare that these same groups will use right uh not
Speaker 2: about not just to get someone to become a berserker
Speaker 2: or get someone to go on a mission like that,
Speaker 2: but using fear to control the uh up the opposition right,
Speaker 2: internal and external fear.
Speaker 3: I think agreed, And perhaps these are the things the
Speaker 3: modern world doesn't want you to know. But you know
Speaker 3: what we want to know, folks. We want to know
Speaker 3: your thoughts. We can't wait to hear your stories of
Speaker 3: other legendary fighting groups. Tell us if you think they
Speaker 3: got a short shrift, tell us if any of the
Speaker 3: legends are true. We try to be easy to find online. Correct.
Speaker 4: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where
Speaker 4: we exist on Facebook, on x FKA, Twitter, and on
Speaker 4: YouTube where you can find new video content coming out
Speaker 4: every single week. And boy do we have some doozies
Speaker 4: coming your way. On Instagram and TikTok, you can find
Speaker 4: us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 3: Show.
Speaker 2: As we said at the top, if you liked this episode,
Speaker 2: head back to October twenty twenty and listen to our
Speaker 2: two part series on assassins. It's they're excellent. Listen to
Speaker 2: them both because the story flows all the way through
Speaker 2: the thing. We also have a phone number. It's one
Speaker 2: eight three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail. You've got
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