Do culto à fúria em guerra: análise da religião no modo de guerrear dos Berserkir

Abstract

Having Scandinavian society in the Viking Age as a starting point, we analyze the relationship between war and religion, which can be seen or personified in the figure of Berserkir. This work focused mainly on the analysis of interference or interweaving of religion and war, which will be presented in the context of the battles, since we seek the understanding of how the fury in the war, the trance in battle and this "absence of the fear of death, "for example, has to some extent related to the religion practiced by that society during that period. So from a qualitative approach, it was made a bibliographic research, which gave substance to this work, divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, the primary sources and the path of academic literature were addressed. In the second, treated the Nordic religion as well as the discussions about the use or no of this term, and the other religious aspects such as shamanism, magic and singing. We still treat the god Óðinn, since is the deity of war and the Berserkir are linked or consecrate to him, as well as the practitioners and the uses made of this religion for warlike purposes. Beyond these points, we saw the cults, rituals and sacrifices made before the battles. The third and final chapter of this dissertation treated the analysis of religion in the way of that the Berserkir warred, as they were portrayed in the sagas, as well as the theories revolving around the way these warriors went into trance.