THE BARBARIAN SOCIETY? MYTHOLOGY AND REALITY CONCERNING THE GERMANIC “ANIMAL-WARRIORS”
“HOLY WARRIORS” OF THE BARBARIAN SOCIETY? MYTHOLOGY AND REALITY CONCERNING THE GERMANIC “ANIMAL-WARRIORS”

Summary/Abstract: The Germanic mythology has a very special character: the animal-warrior. Although present in many other indo-European and North-American mythologies, the wolfspetze and the beserker had some interesting individual features. Beyond mythology lies an entire web of historic sources (written and epigraphic) who stresses out the fact that these warriors were not only the fruit of a rich imagination. They actually were present in such “rational” institutions as the roman army or, later, in the armies of early medieval northern kings. This paper tries to emphasize a few aspects of this complex problem.

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