Did Northern European tribes consume psychedelic drugs, and if so, were they consumed in battle?

by CroCopsLeftLeg
Platypuskeeper

No. There's no evidence of that at all. The idea that Beserkers of the Viking Age ate mushrooms, specifically Fly Agaric, was the invention of Samuel Ödmann, a wonky shut-in who was nevertheless a significant scholar in 18th century Sweden. He based this off its use among shamans in some Uralic peoples of Siberia.

Since a lot of scholars, and popular authors even more so, were reluctant to spoil a good story with criticism until the early 20th century, the mushroom theory got passed on uncritically through the 19th century. Which is when vikings were invented. In the sense that pop cultural interest in them reached a fever, even outside Scandinavia (in England, Germany, USA) and many of the misconceptions that persist to this day (like horned helmets) were crafted.

Now, although it's becoming common knowledge the horned helmets were nonsense, the mushroom thing still lives on. Despite it being a hugely speculative and implausible idea.

We don't know that berserkers were actually "a thing". Or they were certainly a thing as in being a 13th century literary trope of what people in that era in Iceland thought warriors of the Viking Age were like. But these stories were largely or entirely fiction. Basically the first era of Viking Romanticism. So there are some historians (e.g. Swedish medievalist Dick Harrison, Lund Uni) who lean towards considering berserkers an entirely fictional construct. Other historians have theories, although they're inherently speculative; Neil Price (archaeology, Uppsala) is on-board with the idea of shamanistic warriors whereas Britt-Mari Näsström (religious historian, University of Gothenburg) wrote a whole book arguing they originated with northerners who'd served in Roman legions and picked up Mithraism, and transposed that onto Odin, forming a cult within a warrior caste.

What they all have in common is that none of them buy into the mushroom theory. And for good reason; Fly Agaric can cause hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and paralysis. It has no effects that would be of any advantage in a battle, quite the opposite.

Another, but less significant reason why it'd be unlikely is that there was a strong Norse cultural bias against eating mushrooms. There's no record of it in the Sagas, and in the medieval and later time periods, they're mainly referenced as starvation food or animal fodder in the rare cases where eating of mushrooms is referenced. Eating mushrooms did not gain popularity in Scandinavia until the 19th and 20th centuries.