He was extremely superstitious, and believed in invocations of the dead.
The mullahs or priests enjoy very great influence, but the people are very superstitious, believing in witchcraft, omens, spirits and the evil eye.
In his antipathy to Christianity, which appears to him barbaric and superstitious, he gives himself up to the scepticism and satire of a man of the world through which he comes in contact with Epicurean tendencies."
An immense joy in battle breathes through the earliest Norse literature, which has scarce its like in any other literature; and we know that the language recognized a peculiar battle fury, a veritable madness by which certain were seized and which went by the name of " berserk's way " (berserksgangr).2 The courage of the vikings was proof against anything, even as a rule against superstitious terrors.
In that year the Great Fire of London, following on the Great Plague, roused the superstitious fears of the people, and the House of Commons embodied the general feeling in a bill against atheism and profaneness.