The fires of Up Helly Aa

At the end of January we went to Lerwick in Shetland to see the famous Viking fire festival called “Up Helly Aa”.  There are several Up Helly Aa festivals in Shetland, and the Lerwick one is the largest.  The festival involves various groups of Shetlanders called squads, and the main squad, the “Jarl Squad”, are dressed as Vikings.  Their costumes are all made by them on the island, and are different every year.

The festival culminates in a huge torchlit procession and the ritual burning of a replica Viking longship.  Everyone else in the procession is in fancy dress, ranging from the sublime to the very ridiculous.

On the morning of the ship burning the Jarl squad paraded through Lerwick before going off to various civic functions and visiting places like schools and old people’s homes.  They were happily noisy, raising their axes and yelling.  The sharp-eyed among you will notice that the “Da Harbour Chippy” in the background featured in a recent episode of the BBC detective drama “Shetland”.

There is a junior Jarl squad as well, and at around 5.30pm they formed up with all the other junior squads.  They then lit their torches, which produced a scene somewhat like Mordor from “The Lord of the Rings”.

You will notice from the flames that the wind was blowing quite strongly.  When we were there it was so windy that the ferries were cancelled, and we delayed our flights by two days so that we weren’t landing in 60mph crosswind gusts…

The senior squads parade at 7.30pm consisted of 900 people, all carrying flaming torches!  After processing round the streets of Lerwick with the longship, it was moved to the burning site.  All 900 of the procession members then entered the burning site and walked round the ship.  They then, in sequence, threw their torches into the ship, which rapidly, and vigorously, caught fire.

The ship burning was spectacular, and as it burnt a secret was revealed.  The dragon head on the ship had “a little silhouetto” of Freddie Mercury cut into it.  It was covered up until some top layers burnt away.  The wind was blowing the flames all over the place, so I had to take lots of images at this stage to ensure I got the dragon’s head in silhouette against the flames.

As the ship turned finally to ashes the squads left the site, leaving just a Viking gatekeeper wearing a spectacular feathered helmet. He looked fabulous against the dying fire.

The Up Helly Aa festival was a “once in a lifetime” experience.  I hope that we can go back to Shetland in better weather and explore the rest of the island.

First two images taken with OM Systems OM-1 and Olympus 9-18mm zoom lens.  Last three images taken with OM-1 and Olympus 40-150mm Pro lens.