Without Key Practice Boost CD Pack Intermediate level Oxford Practice Grammar Intermediate:

Germania, 43 The Heruli also, a people who practised cremation and suttee, and who were worshippers of the war god, deliberately cultivated the practice of fighting without armour. Procopius tells us that their only protection was a shield and a cloak, and other writers confirm this. At the time of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway in the ninth century, there were berserks in the king’s bodyguard. In the HrafnsmГЎl they are called wolf-coats, and are said to be men of tried valour who never flinched at battle. We are told in Heimskringla that they had a place on the king’s warship. DumГ©zil1 has suggested that the touching with a spear, the mark of consecration to Odin, may have been the initiation ceremony for members of this band, giving assurance of immortality in the service of the war god whom they worshipped and to whom their lives were dedicated. The berserks who roamed through Scandinavia were apparently viewed as sacred to the god. DumГ©zil sees them as a necessary element in society, representing the wild and fantastic in contrast with law and order ...»