history, and a demonstration of the islanders’
skills, spirit and stamina. It lasts just one day
(and night). But it takes several thousand people
364 days to organise. Much of the preparation
is in the strictest secrecy. The biggest secret of
all is what the chieftain of the costumed
Vikings, the Guizer Jarl, will wear and which
character from the Norse Sagas he’ll represent.
The Jarl will have been planning the longest
day of his life for many years, before he dons his
horned or raven-winged helmet, grabs his
shield and embarks on 24 hours of formalised
partying while wearing a dress, brandishing an
axe and singing with volume and cheer.
On the evening of Up Helly Aa Day, more
than 800 heavily-disguised men assemble in
the darkened streets of Lerwick. They carry
wooden fence-posts, topped with a fist of
paraffin-soaked sacking. At 7.30pm, the torches
are lit, the band strikes up and the blazing
procession begins, snaking half a mile astern of
the Guizer Jarl, who stands proudly at the helm
of his doomed longship, or galley.
It takes half an hour for the Jarl’s squad of
Vikings to drag him to the burning site, through
a crowd of four or five thousand spectators.
The Vikings circle the ship in a slow-motion
Catherine Wheel of fire. A rocket explodes
overhead. The Jarl leaves his ship, to a
crescendo of cheers. A bugle call sounds, and
then the torches are hurled into the galley. The
biggest bonfire of the year ensues, there is
singing, and then everyone disperses to parties,
to dance and to eat and drink.
“No postponement for weather.” That’s an
annual, defiant boast considering Up Helly Aa
is held in midwinter on the same latitude as
southern Greenland. But it’s true: gales, sleet
and snow have never yet stopped the Up Helly
Aa revellers from burning their Viking galley in
the town’s play park and then dancing into the
dawn and beyond.
As the festival developed and grew, multiple
‘squads’ – 40, these days – of men began
dressing up in costumes and performing little
skits commenting on local and national events.
Gatherings in private homes and then in public
halls, today about a dozen, were organised. The
festival grew beyond Lerwick, too. There are at
least nine fire festivals across Shetland these
days, including the most recently-founded
festival, the South Mainland Up Helly Aa,
famous, infamous or indeed legendary for
having the first ever female Guizer Jarl.