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Home > Festival > The streets of Lerwick are taken over by Vikings for Up Helly Aa

The streets of Lerwick are taken over by Vikings for Up Helly Aa

By Caroline King - January 16, 2014Posted in : Festival

Up Helly Aa fire festival, Shetland mainland When: 28th January 2014, marching events take place from 9am.  The procession begins at 7.30pm.

Where: Lerwick, Shetland

£: Anyone can view the morning marches and the evening procession.  Spectators may watch from the pavements alongside the roads, no tickets are required.

What is it?

Up Helly Aa in Lerwick is Europe’s largest fire festival and has been an annual tradition since around the 1880s.  The festival features fire-lit processions, a Viking longboat burning, as well as dancing and singing.

The emergence of Yuletide and New Year festivities in Lerwick came some time after the Napoleonic Wars, when soldiers and sailors came home with rowdy habits and a taste for firearms.  As Lerwick grew in size, the celebrations became more elaborate and in the 1840s participants introduced burning tar barrels into the proceedings.

Up Helly Aa fire festival, Shetland mainland, 31 January 2012 The main street of Lerwick in the mid-19th century was extremely narrow, and rival groups of tar- barrelers frequently clashed in the middle.  The proceedings were dangerous and dirty, so the Town Council began to appoint special constables every Christmas to control the revellers with only limited success.

In around 1870 a series of new ideas and the improvised name Up Helly A’ were introduced into the proceedings.  The celebrations changed to the end of January and a far more elaborate element of disguise – “Guizing” – was added into the new festival.  A torchlight procession and Viking themes began to be introduced to the town’s festival.  In the late 1880s a Viking longboat – the “galley” – appeared.  In 1906 the “Guizer Jarl”, or chief Guizer, arrived on the scene.  Then after the First World War there was a squad of Vikings, known as the “Guizer Jarl Squad” added to the procession.

Today the numbers participating in the festival have become much greater, and the resources required correspondingly larger. Whereas in the 19th century individuals kept an open house to welcome the Guizers on Up Helly A’ night; men and women now gather in the halls throughout the town to entertain the locals.  However, despite the changes there are numerous threads connecting the Up Helly Aa of today with its predecessors 150 years ago.

Up Helly Aa fire festival, Shetland mainland The processions are now world-famous and the Guizer Jarl, the leader of the squad, is usually dressed in the finest Viking armour.  His squad are made up of around 50 men who dress up in Viking suits complete with armour.  The squad make their own suits for the procession as well as the accompanying weapons such as axes, swords, spears, daggers, bows and crossbows!  The replica boat is made by local tradesmen and is painted to match the Jarl Squad’s suits.  Over 1000 torches are made for these processions.    It’s a sight not to be missed.

This year’s procession will light up at 7.30pm on the Hillhead (below the Town Hall) and proceed through the town to the site where the galley (replica longboat) is then burnt.  Following the procession the squads head to the halls for dancing and merriment.

More info: For more details about this year’s event including a procession route map, please visit www.uphellyaa.org

Related Posts

  • South Mainland Up Helly Aa lights up Shetland
  • Time for battle in York as the JORVIK Viking Festival kicks off
  • Bringing in the New Year with a unique fire festival
  • Have a swinging New Year with the Stonehaven Fireballs
  • Allendale is aflame for New Year

Tagged With: Scotland, Shetland events, Up Helly Aa

Comments

  1. By Steve Pilfold on January 26, 2014

    Um, I take it that whoever claims it as the biggest fire festival in Europe has never been to Sussex in the autumn?

  2. By David Nicol on January 26, 2014

    This year, the main procession will be broadcast live online at http://www.uphellyaa.com, starting at 7:30pm on Tuesday 28th January. It is well worth tuning in for!

  3. By Jon Hearn on January 26, 2014

    Any Sussex village bonfire society uses more torches than this and the society that I’m a member of, Commercial Square Bonfire Society, in Lewes makes around 6000 torches for the 5th and there are 5 other societies that proccess through the town that same night using similar numbers. Each has their own firesite and firework display.
    Uphellyaa might be Scotland’s biggest fire festival but Europe’s? Not even close!

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