bearskin dress, which would effectually disguise him--_all but his
eyes_--which would gleam out of the sockets in his hideous visor,
unmistakably human. His very name, Björn, signifies a bear; and these
two circumstances may well have invested a kernel of historic fact
with all the romance of fable; and if divested of these supernatural
embellishments, the story would resolve itself into the very simple
fact of there having been a King Hring of the Updales, who was at
variance with his son, and whose son took to the woods, and lived a
berserkr life, in company with his mistress, till he was captured and
slain by his father.

I think that the circumstance insisted on by the Saga-writers, of the
eyes of the person remaining unchanged, is very significant, and
points to the fact that the skin was merely drawn over the body as a
disguise.

But there was other ground for superstition to fasten on the
berserkir, and invest them with supernatural attributes.

No fact in connection with the history of the Northmen is more firmly
established, on reliable evidence, than that of the berserkr rage
being a species of diabolical possession. The berserkir were said to
work themselves up into a state of frenzy, in which a demoniacal power
came over them, impelling them to acts from which in their sober
senses they would have recoiled. They acquired superhuman force, and
were as invulnerable and as insensible to pain as the Jansenist
convulsionists of S. Medard. No sword would wound them, no fire would
barn them, a club alone could destroy them, by breaking their bones,
or crushing in their skulls. Their eyes glared as though a flame
burned in the sockets, they ground their teeth, and frothed at the