Origin of Beorn

[Alcuin]

[EDIT: This thread has been split off the thread Wolves, wargs and werewolves from the Middle earth-forum. - Eärniel]

Beorn is described in terms similar to a Norse berserker. Berserkers are attested in many Dark Age and early medieval documents as warriors possessed of immense strength and agility, immune to pain, fighting without regard to their lives or safety. Modern folk often attribute this condition to the use of psychoactive plants or funguses, or to dismiss it altogether as myth; Dark Age and early medieval rulers and clergy did not have that luxury: they were outlawed in Norway in the early 11th century, and later in Iceland as well. Until then, groups of berserkers banded together, howling, banging their helmets with their weapons and shields, biting their shields, to reach a bloodlust feared by friend and foe alike.

berserkr is Old Norse for “bear shirt.� Berserkers sometimes took names combined with the Old Norse word for “bear� – björn – in them. I think it is Tolkien’s clear intent to paint Beorn as a classic berserker, not a lycanthrope.