Reavers?

If you remember back in ancient history at the beginning of the 21st century, there was a brief sci-fi TV show helmed by Joss Whedon, named Firefly, that culminated with a pretty good movie called Serenity.

If you don't remember, that's fine.  On the show, there was a group of incredibly violent murderous humans called Reavers.  They did really bad things, and seemed to just pillage, plunder, rape, maim, and kill without reason.  (If you've seen Serenity, you know why.)  But when I read this article, the first thing I thought of, given that I've know about the Reavers for awhile, was that these Vikings sounded a lot like Reavers.


Rampaging Vikings were fuelled by hallucinogenic herbal tea that made them feel less pain and become 'highly aggressive' say scientists

• Viking warriors known as berserkers went into battle naked in animalistic frenzy 
• The elite fighters were known for vicious rampages Scandinavian Middle Ages 
• Scientists believe secret to their fearlessness was mind-bending hallucinogens 
• 'Stinking henbane' plant infused with tea or alcohol to make them feel less pain

Sounds startlingly similar to Reavers.

From the article:

"[Stinking henbane] would have made the infamous warriors unable to feel as much pain, as well as becoming 'unpredictable and highly aggressive' and causing them to 'lose touch with reality', according to researchers."

Below is a picture of a Viking raid.  Couldn't find any pictures with naked Vikings -- sorry.