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BEBSEBKSGAHO. 257
selves so much the more irresistible and the more
terrible to their enemies. Thus Harald Harfagri is
said to have had Berserks in his service, which were
called Hfolf-hides (ialfhe8nar), because t^iey wore
wolf-skins over their armor. Their station was in
the .prow of the King's ship, as it was most exposed, in
time of "battle, to the attacks of the enemy. The
Berserks could in this way become iiseful to those
chieftains who had men enough to keep them iil
check when the Berserksgang came over them un-
timely. But to the masses the Berserks were a
terror, and they availed themselves of the fear
which they inspired—and which they naturally
strove to augment by strengthening the superstition
of tBteir invulnerability—^in order to bring into their
power whatever they might wish to gain from the
weaker. A challenge to holmgang, for instance,
was ever ready on the part of the Berserk when his
shameless . demands of property or of women were
repulsed, and his wild frenzy, joined to his skill in
the accomplishments requisite in a duel, secured to
him in most cases a favorable issue of the battle.
Those who in this way made of the holmgang a
means of gain, were usually called holmgang-men
(holmgongu-menn) ; their number was not inconsid-
erable in heathen, times, and they were a real
plague to the peaceable countrymen, whom they
took pleasure in tormenting on all occasions.
Although the holmgang degenerated in this manner
into a tool of the basest selfishness, revenge, and
wickedness, there is, at the same, time nodoubt that
it was originally a religious custom, in which the