Fylgja Berserkr "Méditation" - vikings-illustration

I introduce you to Ølaf, another protagonist of my saga.

The Fylgja is in a sense a second spirit that inhabits us, like a kind of soul freed from the body envelope.

In the case of a berserker, the Fylgja is an animal: bear, wild boar or wolf most frequently. For the "warrior-fawn" it allows him to enter a warrior trance, to "become" the animal, faster, stronger, more discreet ...
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I represented here a young berserker in full meditation. Clad in the skin of the animal he killed during his violent rite of initiation.
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The berserker are the warriors of Odin, they are the Einherjer terrestrial. Far from the image of thick brutes made by the sagas of the twelfth century, the warriors-tawny would be both shamans and warriors, I understand them as mystical beings above all.
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Anyway, they remain for us a mystery ...
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I have many things to say about the character of Ølaf but again I will abstain to avoid revealing too much. I leave you with the image =)
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I advise all those who would like to deepen the subject the reading of the excellent book "the wild warriors" by Vincent Samson, University Presses of the Septentrion

22/05/16 par Skiold