The Celebration of Up Helly Aa, Viking Festival

January 30, 2007 on 10:52 pm | Friedrich Braun | History , Nordicism | | Email This Post | Print this Post

Up Helly Aa is any of a variety of fire festivals held in Shetland annually in the middle of winter. The festival involves a procession of guizers (or guisers) formed into squads processing through the town or village in a variety of themed costumes.

The first celebration was in 1878, when instead of burning the usual tar-barrel on Auld New Years Eve, a Shetland yoal (a traditional boat) decorated with a dragon’s head and tail was burned. It did not become a regular event until 1889.

There is a main guizer who is dubbed the “Jarl”. There is a committee which you must be part of for fifteen years before you can be a jarl, and only one person is elected onto this committee once a year.

This procession culminates in the torches being thrown into a replica Viking longship or galley. The event happens all over towns in Shetland, but it is only the Lerwick galley which is not sent seaward. Everywhere else, the galley is sent seabound, in an echo of actual Viking sea burials.

After the procession the squads visit local halls (this includes Schools, Sports Facilities and Hotels) where private parties are held. At each hall each squad performs its act, this may be a send-up of a popular TV show or film, a skit on local events, or singing or dancing, usually in flamboyant costume.

Due to the often flamboyant costumes and the large quantity of males dressing up as females, it has earned the joke name ‘Transvestite Tuesday’.

More pictures here.

No Comments yet »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Powered by WordPress.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^

Donate towards my web hosting bill!