Beasts of War and Men of War A philological and archaeological interdisciplinary study regarding the imagery of beasts in war and warriors.

Abstract

The aim of this master thesis is to identify the impact of animals in the imagery of the societies in the Scandinavian Iron Age and the Viking age through written and archaeological sources. The figure of the animal is established in three levels and I will address them and the impact it had on the aforementioned societies, the animal itself, the beasts of war the savage warriors and the imagery of the animal in the context of savage warriors who used such imagery. The analysis of the animals and beasts of war is important to understand the further roles that they carried. Then we would proceed to the analysis of the savage warriors that used a relationship with animals, this would be mostly the Berserkr and the Úlfheðnar, which are very present in the literary corpus. Then, an analysis of the animal in the archaeological sources gives us another perspective which will add consistency to this study. This provided some interesting results which would be interesting to keep working on, such as the possibility of different warrior ranks or status that are identifiable through the analysis of the animals.