Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla got me pondering lots of different things while playing.
- How many of these characters are real as opposed to fictional?
- Was flyting a real thing?
- Why is there so much damn content in this game?
But, ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶o̶r̶t̶a̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ for the purposes of this article — why are mushrooms so prevalent in a game about Vikings in medieval England?
Some more familiar with the topic may already understand the muddied history that the inclusion of mushrooms in Valhalla draws from, but alas — I am uneducated swine, and I did not.
So I set off to learn.
What I discovered surprised me.
First, I found articles and sources explaining how common, accepted understanding among scholars and historians was that Vikings consumed mushrooms as part of pre-battle ritual because of their mental effects.
These articles claimed that the Amanita Muscaria (also known as the Fly Agaric) was the mushroom of choice for the fabled Berserkers of Viking lore. Its psychedelic effects apparently sent Berserkers into their frenzied states.
But, upon further digging, I found plenty of sources that upended this theory. Based on Fly Agaric’s use in the game, it seems the folks at Ubisoft did, too.
Modern academic thought now leans away from the Fly Agaric, noting its relaxing effects as opposed to enraging. Additionally, some now call into question our modern, Hollywood-ified conception of a Berserker at all. What seems more likely is that Viking warriors did have pre-battle rituals to hype themselves up and prepare accordingly, but that they were more akin to the pre-fort-storming sequences we see in Valhalla rather than imbibing a mushroom brew.
Upon learning all of this, I was pleased upon reflection of Valhalla’s use of both the Fly Agaric and thus, the idea of the Berserker as well.
I can easily imagine an entire game mechanic that could’ve existed where Eivor must gather materials to mix a Berserker brew (maybe similar to that of potions in The Witcher) that would give her an insane power boost in battle (maybe similar to Ghost stance in Ghost of Tsushima).
Instead, Ubisoft opted to ground Valhalla in a little more realism than that.
Fly Agarics are not frenzy-inducing mega drugs as modern fantasy would have you believe, but are simply only hallucinogenic in Valhalla — just as they are in real life. Meanwhile, the idea of a Berserker only exists in one DLC sidequest that makes scant use of the mushroom brew for fun rather than in seriousness.
With all of that said, there’s still plenty of mushrooms in Valhalla, and we can glean some interesting things from them.
What we’re really here for is the last one on this list, the Fly Agaric. However, I decided to drop some info on each of the mushrooms in Valhalla because, why not? Gaming doesn’t exist in a vacuum and these real-life overlaps are fascinating to me.
The Winter Chanterelle
In real life:
- Yellow-brown in color
- Primarily bloom late in the mushroom season (winter)
- Usually grows in large groups
- Grows in temperate, cold sections of Europe (among other places) including Scandinavia and Britain
- Choice — it is eaten in dishes all over North America and Europe
- Can be dried for preservation
In Valhalla:
- Consumable item
- Restores health
- Yellow in color
- Grows in large groups (boss arenas littered with them are theoretically accurate to real life)
- Preserved as rations
Blackish Purple Russula
In real life:
- Grows in Asia, Europe and North America
- Safe to eat if cooked
- Apparently tastes hot (maybe that’s where the adrenaline burst comes from?)
In Valhalla:
- Consumable item
- Provides one bar of adrenaline
Blue Roundhead
In real life:
- Found in Europe and North America
- Not generally considered edible, though not explicitly poisonous
In Valhalla:
- Consumable item
- Poisons and damages Eivor’s health
Destroying Angel
In real life:
- Found in Europe and North America
- Among the most toxic known mushrooms
In Valhalla:
- Consumable item
- Poisons Eivor and adds the hallucination effect
Fly Agaric
In real life:
- Native to the northern hemisphere
- Poisonous
- Contains psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties
In Valhalla:
- Optional side activity
- Causes Eivor to trip the fuck out
- After eating this mushroom, Eivor has hallucinations in which she must solve puzzles to pass through gateways or battle a small horde of enemies
- Eivor emerges from these hallucinations with wisdom — she recites a proverb from Norse mythos (more on this in a moment)
So, what we can see from the above is that mushrooms in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla have both physical and mental effects.
Physically, the effects are pretty straightforward, taking some creative and gamified liberties here and there.
Their mental effects bring a few interesting wrinkles, however, particularly in the Fly Agaric — the only mushroom in the game that is not a consumable, but rather an entire side activity and map marker in its own right. The Fly Agaric stands out in this way, an opportunity for the game to tell us something about the nature of the relationship between Eivor and this spore-bearing fungus.
Physical Effects
Nourishing or damaging, mushrooms provide for the body. They’re a food, after all. This makes perfectly good sense.
Though we’ve already pointed out that the Fly Agaric likely wasn’t the source of berserk-ness or any kind of increased rage on the battlefield, Valhalla does hearken to this notion with the combat encounters at Fly Agaric locations and in the Bjorn the Berserker questline. This was a nice homage to an historical misconception, used sparingly as a fantasy element. I think it fit just fine without going over the top or perpetuating an inaccurate dramatized understanding of Vikings.
Mental Effects
I’ll gloss over the obvious hallucinations here and attempt to go a little deeper.
Puzzles & Gates
The trips brought on by Fly Agaric in Valhalla often require you to engage your mental in order to solve a puzzle involving passing through a gate.
These were interesting to me. Why gates all the time?
Baldr, being a Norse entity, is where my mind first jumped to. He’s known for having a gate, isn’t he? He’s also a god associated with wisdom, which caught my eye due to the nature of the anecdotes Eivor speaks after the hallucination sequences.
Well, as it would turn out, there are no gates as a part of Baldr’s story. Baldur’s Gate is just the name of a video game series (that I’ve never played).
The only other meaningful gate that I (admittedly a Norse mythos newbie) could find was the Bifrost.
A bridge between Midgard and Asgard (and in many adaptations, including Valhalla, a hub for gateways to the other 7 realms), the Bifrost’s rainbow colors bring to mind the on-screen visual effect we witness during Eivor’s mushroom trips. But the gates in Fly Agaric sections don’t lead anywhere, connect anywhere, nor do they let anything in as the Bifrost does.
What they seem to lead to, in a sense, is wisdom. Indeed, the mushrooms are a conduit for transference from one state to another, symbolically identified by gates which Eivor must pass through.
Ultimately, she is transferring or transcending into a more wise state.
Wisdom
Eivor is a strikingly wise character for someone her age. She gives brilliant (and poetic) advice to numerous characters throughout her epic.
Upon completion of each puzzle Fly Agaric sequence (and only the puzzle ones), Eivor oddly drops a wise anecdote.
What she’s actually doing is reciting a verse from the Norse poem Hávamál — The Words of Odin The High One. Here are some examples.
“I saw a rich man’s house burning,
yet he was hopeful,
and death stood outside his door.
It is always better to live, even in misery.For the unwise man ’tis best to be mute
when he come amid the crowd,
for none is aware of his lack of wit
if he wastes not too many words”
Her recital of these is almost random — it seemingly has no connection to the activity or Eivor’s immediate experiences. So why does she speak them?
Does Eivor have epiphanies while tripping absolute ballsack? Does consuming Fly Agaric elevate her mind to a state of transcendence and wisdom that would rival the Bible’s book of Proverbs, which is then followed by uncontrollably spewing anecdotes into the silence of the woods around her?
…Or does the Fly Agaric unlock the block in Eivor’s mind, allowing bits of Odin to seep out?
We know Odin lies deep within Eivor, acting almost as a conscience during confession scenes throughout the game. If all her quotes come from the Hávamál, and these quotes seem to drip from her lips almost involuntarily after consuming Fly Agaric, is the hallucination effect allowing pieces of her subconscious — in the form of Odin, his words and his knowledge — to manifest?
No matter what you believe, mushrooms in Valhalla provide Eivor a transcendence of both body and mind. It’s not fantastical or sensationalized — like the concept of the Berserker — but it is instead grounded.
And it is one of the game’s many hints at Eivor’s true nature.
