Hi again Bernard, I hope you’re keeping well.
I have begun to take a look at evidence of post traumatic stress disorder – or it’s symptoms in ancient texts and how ancient and medieval cultures dealt with those afflicted by it. It is turning out to be fascinating with some indications of returning veterans being treated with care understanding and respect through to simply being exiled or killed. Obviously fictional characters have a natural immunity to the effects of the horrors that they experienced in exceptionally violent periods of history, but I am wondering if your extensive research of the Dark Age and Saxon eras have given you any thoughts on the subject on how ptsd sufferers might have been treated and viewed in their own societies. I suspect accounts of viking bersekers might point to warriors so afflicted and I cannot help but wonder if such men could have ever returned to their homes (assuming they survived!), and how they might have integrated or been helped or managed. I realise violence was commonplace in older times and people more used to it than we are, but ptsd must have been a large problem for many societies.
All the best
Andy