Up Helly Aa — the galley burns

The midwinter fire festival as Lerwick now knows it was a Victorian re-invention of older Norse-edged customs: tar barrels rolled flaming through the streets gave way in the 1880s to torchlight processions and, in 1889, to the burning of a full-size replica Viking galley at the King George V playing field. The Guizer Jarl and his squad spend a year planning their costumes; on the last Tuesday in January the rest of the town joins them. Forty-six other Up Helly Aas now run across rural Shetland through January and February.