Ok Joan the picture - painted in 1908 by Russell Flint and called, La Belle Dame sans Merci - after the poem of the same name by Keats.
The poem is considered by many to be one of the loveliest of the literary ballads. It begins when a person passing by on the side of a hill comes upon a knight at arms who seems lost and dazed. The knight describes his meeting with a beautiful lady without mercy.
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the Lake
And no birds sing!
O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
So haggard, and so woe begone?
The Squirrel’s granary is full
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast witherest too —
I met a Lady in the Meads,
Full beautiful, a faery’s child.
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild —
I made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone
She look’d at me as she did love
And made sweet moan —
I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery’s song —
She found me roots of relish sweet
And honey wild and manna dew
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true —
She took me to her elfin grot
And then she wept and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And then she lulled me asleep
And there I dream’d, Ah Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried, La belle dame sans merci
Thee hath in thrall.
I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill’s side
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing —
~ John Keats (1795-1821), English Romantic poet
However, there is more in the painting - yes, Leah the figures in the trees that if you notice, adjacent to the tree a long staff or totem that is nicely carved although we cannot see the top - it disappears beyond the painting - for our purposes as a sleeping man who is dreaming the painting works - and to associate it with the Keats poem works - however, there is more... and those figures and the totem tell another story.
During the Viking Age, “warrior-shamans” typically fell into two groups: the berserkers (Old Norse berserkir, “bear-shirts”) and úlfheðnar (Old Norse for “wolf-hides”). These groups were of the earlier Germanic warband, and had in common the shamanism of other circumpolar peoples.
Circumpolar is one of five groups of stars always visible above the horizon and it also refers to being surrounded or located at or near either of the earth's poles. The Norse early religion includes a tree as the earths axis or pole that was often symbolized in ceremony as a staff and a totem.
Both the berserkers and úlfheðnar shared a common set of shamanic practices - the difference - the totem animal of the berserkers was the bear, the úlfheðnar was the wolf. Our painting does not show us which animal is on top of the totem.
Now the good stuff - an initiation process using a symbolic death and rebirth, when the shaman-to-be acquires his powers. In preparation they spent a period in the wilderness, living like their totem animal and learning its ways, sustaining themselves through hunting, gathering, and raiding the nearest towns. They ceased to be ordinary human being and became instead a wolf-man or a bear-man, more a part of the forest than of civilization.
On the battlefield, the berserker or úlfheðinn would enter the fray armor-less and naked wearing only his animal mask and pelts into battle and were as crazed as dogs or wolves and as strong as bears or bulls. They bit their shields and slew men, while they themselves were not harmed by fire nor iron. This is called “going berserk" howling, roaring, and running amok with godly or demonic courage.
A warrior’s shield and weapons were the emblems of his social identity and status. They were given to a young man who had come of age by his father to mark his arrival into the world of rights and responsibilities of his society’s adult men.
Biting or discarding the shield, the mythical beast triumphed over the petty man, and “Odin’s men” tore through the battle, in a trance impervious to pain.
Notice in the picture his shield hangs in a tree - I would guess the other male figures in the trees represent Odin or his men, such as Egill Skallagrímsson and Starkaðr, warrior-poets. Although our young warrior is dressed he is not in typical fighting gear however, there is a metal helmet near his feet.
If this is the real story behind the painting then the woman is probably a Valkyrie, a female supernatural figure associated with fate and in particular, chooser of the slain. Viking Age stylized silver amulets depicting women with long gowns, their hair pulled back, sometimes presenting drinking horns have been found throughout Scandinavia. These figures are commonly considered to represent valkyries.
So have your pick - weary traveler - Keats, sleeping knight - or one of the Norse fighting men either dying or living in the forest and going into his trance
