Q&A: The Viking origins of “berserk” and “ransack”

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, norse code…

Q: Hi AWC, what influence did the Vikings have on English?

A: Well, they went berserk and ransacked everything in sight.

Q: That’s certainly one way of putting it.

A: No, specifically those words – berserk and ransack – come from Old Norse.

Q: Oooooh. 

A: ‘Berserk’ came to English in 1822 via a text by Sir Walter Scott called The Pirate, in which he described a ‘berserkar’ – from the Old Norse ‘berserkr’ meaning ‘raging warrior of superhuman strength’. 

Q: So basically Thor.

A: Not quite god-like.

Q: Okay, maybe one of the other lesser-known Hemsworth brothers then?

A: Haha, sure. By the way, the word ‘berserkr’ comes from ‘ber’ for ‘bear’ and ‘serkr’ meaning ‘shirt’. Sir Walter Scott had originally thought it was ‘bare-shirt’ as in a warrior who fights with no shirt and no armour, but instead it’s one who literally wears a ‘bear-skin’.

Q: Yeah, there’s quite a difference, especially in winter.

A: Good point.

Q: So where does the modern meaning come from?

A: You’re probably talking about the adjective. The Macquarie Dictionary defines it as ‘violently and destructively frenzied’.

Q: That’s the one!

A: The answer is relatively simple. These bearskin-wearing warriors were known particularly for their fierce, trance-like uncontrolled style of fighting. So while the men themselves were originally known by this name, it came to describe anyone who acts in a frenzied or wild way.

Q: Yeah, they ‘go berserk’!

A: That’s it.

Q: So these frenzied Hemsworths, they lost their name to an adjective?

A: Yeah, although the noun does live on as the sort-of-original form ‘berserker’.

Q: Okay, so what about ‘ransack’? Is there an actual sack involved?

A: ‘Sack’ may have played a part in its final form, but the original English form of the word back in the 1200s was ‘ransaken’ – in turn from the Norse ‘rannsaka’. 

Q: To plunder and pillage?

A: Well yes, essentially. But the literal translation was ‘rann’ for house (it’s where we get ‘barn’ from too) and ‘saka’ for search – an origin of ‘seek’. So ‘rannsaka’ meant ‘search the house’.

Q: You said the English word was ‘ransaken’ – so how did it change to ‘ransack’?

A: Aha, well, that is likely where the later influence of the word ‘sack’ comes along. The term ‘sack’ in the 1540s meant to plunder, such as ‘sacking a city’ – from the French ‘sac’ and Italian ‘sacco’, as in, to put it in the bag. Often those plundering would literally place the items they grabbed into bags.

Q: So there was a sack involved!

A: Yes, or else the word may have ended up as ‘ransake’ instead. Oh, and by the way, if you know your American Football terms, to ‘sack’ the quarterback (tackle them) likely comes from that same plundering origin – but it’s fairly new, from the late 1960s.

Q: And getting the sack from work?

A: This one might have different origins, but we do know it turned up in the 1820s and one of the theories is that it had to do with taking your bag of tools when you left.

Q: Or cardboard box of pot plants and photoframes.

A: Not sure if getting the box from your job has the same ring to it.

Q: True. Well, we certainly pillaged some knowledge from these two words today. But it has left me in some pain.

A: Really?

Q: Yes indeed. I’m feeling quite Thor. Bahahahahahaaa.

A: Ugh, go away.

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