Beyond a misty veil, dawn breaks above Shetland – sort of. The days feel as if they never quite get going here at this time of year, and it’s important, as the long nights of winter drag on, to have a hobby. Here in Lerwick, the capital of the archipelago, the locals have divined a unique way of passing the time, while honouring the deep-rooted Scandinavian influences on Shetland’s culture and history.
A rattling and murmuring begins to grow, and round a corner emerges a marching horde of lusty Vikings in homemade costumes, brandishing axes and round shields, beards flowing over leather breastplates. They carry turquoise standards bearing the flag of Haraldr Óláfsson, the 13th-century king of Mann and the Isles, and sing battle songs of raven flags flying in distant lands, of blazing torches and Vikings ruling over oceans vast.
As the mob approaches, a shed door creaks open behind me, and a dragon-prowed, glacial blue longship emerges, pulled on ropes by a team dozens strong. This beautiful galley will be paraded through the streets of Lerwick today before being ritualistically set ablaze – the centrepiece of Up Helly Aa, Shetland’s riotous fire festival. As an act of ritual destruction it evokes the sand mandala, the Tibetan Buddhist practice of creating ornate cosmological artworks only to sweep them away as a metaphor for non-attachment and impermanence. “It’s a symbol of renewal,” says Lyall Gair, who has led the Up Helly Aa procession in years past and retains an impressive, Viking-worthy beard. A man standing next to us in the crowd has an alternative explanation. “There’s fuck all else to do around here all winter,” he says, shivering against the morning breeze.
After Christmas, the hootenannies, paper hats and midnight countdowns of 31 December can feel a little lame. Thankfully, Shetland offers a second bite of the cherry when it comes to seeing in the new year, with Up Helly Aa’s series of fire festivals setting the archipelago alight between January and March – timed to mark the end of the pre-Christian winter festival of Yule (others include Scalloway fire festival, also on Shetland, and Uyeasound on Unst). There are 11 festivals spread across the islands, but by far the largest and best-known is held in late January here in Lerwick, which sits on Mainland, the largest Shetland island (on 27 January in 2026).
The procession, with the galley in its wake, disappears round another corner. There will now be a lull in proceedings for the watching public, though not for the Vikings in the main procession, known as the Jarl Squad, who spend the day attending to various civic duties – a boozy brunch with local luminaries, some visits to schools and hospitals, then a lush, louche luncheon, before more processions through the streets, chanting and rattling of swords and shields, and general merriment.
I take advantage of the break in the schedule to swot up on the history of the event, meeting Jolene Garriock, a tour guide with Island Vista, at Fjarå, a cafe overlooking the ocean. “The Lerwick Up Helly Aa’s been going for over 100 years, and I’ve been going for 30,” says Jolene, who grew up on the west coast of Mainland, and now lives in the Tingwall valley, a short drive from Lerwick.
Up Helly Aa seems to have begun in the 19th century, after Shetland’s young men returned from the Napoleonic wars with frazzled minds, a low boredom threshold and a facility for pyrotechnics. They channelled their energy into tar barrelling, the practice of stuffing wooden barrels with straw and tar, setting them alight and parading them through the town. Rival “squads” of tar barrellers would often brawl in the streets, leading a wide-eyed missionary, visiting in 1824, to describe Lerwick as “in an uproar: from 12 o’clock last night until late this night blowing of horns, beating of drums, tinkling of old tin kettles, firing of guns, shouting, bawling, fiddling, fifeing, drinking, fighting”.
The chaos, Jolene says, proved too much for the authorities, who by the late 19th century had done away with the tar barrelling and replaced it with the building and burning of the galley, reshaping Up Helly Aa into a celebration of Shetland’s Nordic heritage, as well as a festival celebrating the new year and return of the light. “Hogmanay is dying in Shetland – nobody makes an effort for that any more,” she says. “Up Helly Aa is the biggest thing of the year.”
By the time I bid Jolene goodbye, it has long since gone dark; Lerwick’s streetlights have been extinguished in advance of the burning of the galley, and the streets are thronging with thousands of people. The Jarl Squad are out again, redder-eyed and sloppier than this morning after the day’s libations, but still in strong voice, and now carrying blazing torches. They’re followed by hundreds of men in fancy dress: nuns, Wombles, French maids. These are the modern incarnation of the original tar-barrelling squads, who have nowadays swapped brawling in the streets for touring venues across Lerwick on Up Helly Aa night, staging comedy skits.
The procession files into a play park in the centre of town, where the galley lies waiting, doused in paraffin. The Jarl Squad and their entourage throw their lit torches into the belly of the boat, and before long it is engulfed in flames, warming the watching crowd. As the fire dies down and the spectators file away into the warmth of the town’s afterparty venues, for a night of comedy skits and folk dancing, soup and sandwiches, and much taking of drink, I observe the smouldering wreckage. It’s almost painful to think of the energy and care that went into the galley’s creation, only for it to go up in flames – until I remember Lyall’s words to me that morning, on Up Helly Aa’s power as a vehicle for renewal. “We just build another one next year,” he had said. “We start anew.”