Bonjour! Hello again from Scotland, Marie-Agnès, Janice and Jean-Claude!
We both wish you – and all of Scotiana’s readers – bon courage and many happy times in the year ahead, which promises to be quite a difficult one. 🙂
Snowdrops from Blaikiewell Animal Sanctuary, in Deeside, Aberdeenshire, UK - Source: Wikipedia
As we write, the garden snowdrops are in full bloom, yet winter is not over. There’s a very welcome ‘stretch’ to the days, however, with an extra hour of light mornings and evenings; but how we wish Spring would hurry up! January can seem a dull month in Scotland, with the weather at its worst (mercifully, this year’s has been remarkably mild!) – and only the Burns events around the 25th to break the monotony.
Shetland Map - Source: Wikipedia
Dear Friends, we’ve often remarked in our regular messages how curious it is, that a small country like Scotland should have a separate Lowland and Highland culture – to which, arguably, could be added the distinctive cultures of Orkney and the Shetland Islands! It’s to Shetland that we go today, to see how the folks of Lerwick deal with a long, dark January night; is there anything in Europe – anything in the world, we wonder – to match the scale and spectacle of Up Helly Aa?
From modest beginnings in the 1880’s, Up Helly Aa has grown to become Lerwick’s biggest event of the year, surpassing Christmas and the New Year festivities put together. Traditionally, the fire festival begins on the evening of the last Tuesday in January – followed by a night of celebration and revelry – for the very good reason that it is convenient to have a Public Holiday next day, so that everyone can rest and recover!
Jean-Claude, Janice, Mairiuna – we’re fortunate to have seen Up Helly Aa several times, and will try to give you a flavour of the excitement that’s in the air on Lerwick’s night of the year ..
Up Helly Aa - 2011 Lerwick Procession. Photo by Robert Perry - Source: Shetlopedia.com , courtesey The Scotsman
“From grand old Viking centuries Up Helly Aa has come,
Then light the torch and form the march and sound the rolling drum .. .. “
Cowboys, an Arab sheikh and his harem, a team of ‘schoolgirl’ hockey players with curiously broad shoulders – just some of the 900 men who have formed two long lines at the Hillhead, ready to walk in procession. Suddenly, Lerwick is plunged into darkness – it’s the moment everyone has been waiting for. At 7.15 precisely, there’s a blaze of torches as the Guizer Jarl and his squad of Vikings pass swiftly through the ranks to head the march. Then, as the Town Hall clock strikes the half hour, a coastguard rocket is fired – the signal for lighting up! In seconds, guizers and spectators are bathed in an orange glow as the flames of 900 flickering torches leap up into the night sky.
Up Helly Aa (4) - the Procession © 1973 Anne Burgess - Source: Wikipedia
And they’re off, singing as they march to the Up Helly Aa Song behind the beautifully built replica galley.
This is no ordinary torchlight procession. Up Helly Aa traditionally marks the end of ‘Yule’ and the ‘holy days’ of Christmas; preparations have gone on all year. Gales and driving rain can be expected in Shetland in January, but the festival is never postponed; the torches are just made larger! Each one is six feet long and weighs a stone – and has been soaked in paraffin until a gallon has been absorbed. It takes a fit young man to carry this kind of load for an hour – which is one reason why an attempt by feminists in 1986 to bring women into the procession came to nothing.
Up Helly Aa (5) - the Circle Round the Galley © 1973 Anne Burgess - Source: Wikipedia
Now the guizers are marching and counter-marching, six abreast, in King Erik Street, below the Town Hall. In the King George V Playing Field, the drama is moving towards its climax. Some people become quite tearful as the galley is completely encircled by flaming torches.
Up Helly Aa (6) - Setting Fire to the Galley © 1973 Anne Burgess - Source: Wikipedia
The Guizer Jarl’s squad march around the proud longship. A bugle call is sounded, and as the last note dies away, the torches thud one after another into the doomed vessel.
Up Helly Aa (7) - the Burning Galley © 1973 Anne Burgess - Source: Wikipedia
Fascinated, we watch until the last moments when her back breaks and the tottering mast falls amid a shower of sparks into the inferno!
Up Helly Aa (3) - the Galley © 1973 Anne Burgess - Source: Wikipedia
The day of Up Helly Aa had started early. We had our first sight of the galley at 10am, as it was towed to the harbour for a photo-call – escorted by the Guizer Jarl, his full squad and the brass band. Vikings large and small are everywhere – did you ever see so many bearded men? The jaws of the ship’s dragon head gape open, the Raven Banner thrashes in the wind. Everyone, it seems, has a camera; while the professionals mount their stepladders, the amateur snappers point this way and that, trying to get everything in.
Up Helly Aa (2) - the Jarl Squad © 1973 Anne Burgess - Source: Wikipedia
A great cheer goes up as the new Jarl makes his first public appearance. Above all, Up Helly Aa day belongs to him; he and his squad have the privilege of inviting their younger male relatives to join them on the big day, and only they may wear Viking costume.Each year a new Guizer Jarl is elected from the 15 members of the organising committee (generally by rotation; he then retires from office). But for each man it is a tremendous honour – a day to remember, as for 24 hours he impersonates one of the great heroes of the old Norse sagas.
Up Helly Aa (1) The Guiser Jarl © 1973 Anne Burgess Wikipedia - Source: Wikipedia
The Guizer Jarl must attend to ‘affairs of state’ at the Town Hall; he meets civic dignitaries and receives messages of congratulation from Shetland exiles all over the world. (One of them comes from a ship in the Antarctic – Shetlanders have the sea in their blood.) And he drinks the Up Helly Aa toast from the goblet, in the shape of a galley, that was a gift from Maaloy, the community in western Norway with which Lerwick is twinned.
Up Helly Aa Jarl 's Toasting Cup - Photo by Kozetland - Shetlopedia.com
We join the queue at the newsagent’s in Commercial Street to buy the official Programme, containing information that has been top-secret until that morning – here are the names chosen by the 50 squads of guizers who will follow the galley in the torchlight procession. They give a clue – just a clue – to the sort of stunts and humorous sketches each squad will perform during the night-long revelries. Most importantly, if you should be a visitor, a plan shows the exact route of the procession to the burning site.
A short fireworks display follows the burning of the galley. At 9pm the first squads are ready to visit the dozen or so halls, all over Lerwick, as the celebration continues. Among the guests inside, the girls are wearing their best party dresses, hoping to be chosen for a dance once the guizers have performed their ‘acts’.
The most amusing of these little plays often have to do with local Shetland events or matters in the news. Chers Amis, we can still remember one of the sketches quite clearly – it had to do with a young couple who wanted to make their home in an abandoned church in the country, which happened to have a burial ground around it! So, enter the squad with a complete church – in modular form – gravestones, flowers, the lot. Two men played the parts of the young homemakers, others were the planning officials from the Town Council. The remainder, as you might imagine, wore ghostly white sheets over their heads! 🙂
Just one of almost 50 acts on Lerwick’s night of the year. Up Helly Aa is great fun!
A bientôt, Marie-Agnès, Jean-Claude et Janice!
Margaret, Iain.
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