Now, when we talk about Celts, most people think of the peoples of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and French Brittany because that is where Celtic culture still thrives.One similarity they had in regard to religion and war was the offering of war bounty into bodies of water.Lakes, bogs, rivers, and various other bodies of water were where military gifts to the Divine were given.These ranged from swords and other weaponry to elaborate shields and armor.In fact, this common Celtic practice is believed to have influenced the King Arthur legends about the Lady of the Lake, wherein Arthur receives his famous sword Excalibur from a magical woman lurking in the depths of a body of water.A recurring theme in the warrior cultures of the Celts is just how intensely they would throw their entire mind, body, and spirit into battle.Not only was this an effective tactic on the battlefield, but it also served a religious purpose.Also, being seen as a strong and valuable warrior was often the best way to gain respect and prestige in the eyes of the clan.So, if you were there in battle against them, not only would you see these wild men going absolutely insane with enraged strength, but you’d also see them carrying the severed heads of your comrades.To the Celts, though, this was not for the psychological shock value of body desecration in and of itself, but rather, it was to enhance their own spiritual power.Admittedly, more research needs to be done for any definitive answers, but the current prevailing theory is that the head was the part of the body in which many Celtic tribes believed the soul resided.Seeing this absolutely terrified their sane enemies, often weakening them psychologically before any fighting even began.As to what going berserk actually was, there are two prevailing theories.The religious theory is that these Norse warriors were engaging in a type of spiritual possession to give them a leg up in battle.Naturally, it’s hard to be seen as anything but the bad guys when history is being written by all the people you’ve victimized over the years.When we get down to it, it was for both practical and spiritual reasons.On the practical side, these raids brought in a lot of wealth to the various chieftains back in Scandinavia.And it wasn’t just the chieftains who’d benefit, either.The actual Viking warriors who went overseas could amass personal wealth from the spoils of war that they plundered.Similar to the ancient Greeks, the default afterlife for Norse pagans was seen as dark and horrific.Thus, to ensure that your ever after in the hereafter was a good one, you needed to keep putting yourself in situations where you could potentially die from armed conflict, thus the high frequency of Viking raids.Also, in an ironic twist, if a Norse warrior was always victorious and unbeaten in battle, then that made them less likely to enter Valhalla since they were less likely to die in or because of losing a fight.Thus, for these veteran warriors who lived to a ripe old age, there was a real fear of not getting into Valhalla.Most influentially, though, the Norse peoples weren’t pagans anymore.Scandinavia had been effectively Christianized, and with most of Europe also Christianized, it became less popular among the Norsemen to brutally attack their brothers and sisters of the faith.Eastern Europe often gets left out when it comes to world history, but it was here where continental pagan spiritual resistance against the onslaught of Christian evangelism endured the longest.Paganism in the Baltic region of Eastern Europe held many similarities with paganism elsewhere in Europe.Aside from a polytheistic pantheon of deities, nature was regarded as inherently divine, and through the spiritual ability to commune with the unseen forces of the natural world, one could influence destiny.Consequently, this warrior was so freaked out by what he read in the dice that he kept yelling and loudly warning everyone about the prediction, ignoring their pleas for him to be quiet.Caught between the Catholicism of Western Europe and the Eastern Orthodoxy of Eastern Europe, no longer was being nondenominational Christian enough, as both factions of Catholic and Orthodox Christians demanded that each Lithuanian king pick a side.Lithuania needed allies, but there were no more pagan kingdoms left with whom to ally against all of Christian Europe and invading nomads from the steppes of Asia.This marriage united Lithuania and Poland into, effectively, one Catholic kingdom.History is written by the winners, and whatever