It was at exactly 7.30pm on an exceptionally calm and dry night that
Lerwick's fire festival Up-Helly-Aa, celebrating the islands' Viking heritage, was
getting close its climax.
The signal for the lighting of the torches was given and soon
Lerwick's
streets were lit by the magnificent light of over 850 torches. The
procession for the famous fire festival of the North was led by Guizer Jarl
Sigurd Hlodvisson on his galley, the `Ásmundervag.
Around 5,000 people turned up to watch the 1999 Up-Helly Aa galley to go
up in flames. As the inferno destroyed four months' of painstaking work by
the galley builders, the crowd sung 'The Norseman's Home'.
This
year's Jarl (Davie Mathewson, a 36-years old single man from Gilbertson
Road, Lerwick), depicted Sigurd Hlodvisson - Sigurd the Stout, Earl of Orkney
who lived from 980 until 1014 when he died on the battlefield at Clontarf,
Ireland. `I think he was quite a character,´ Jarl Mathewson said.
According to the Orkneyinga sage, Sigurd was a great chieftain who ruled
over several dominions, including the Isle of Man. He was powerful enough
to defend Caithness against the Scots and went on Summer expeditions,
plundering the Hebrides, Scotland and Ireland.
After
the burning, the party continues, as 48 squads, consisting of exactly 902
guizers, all disguised with a particular theme in mind, visit eleven halls in
rotation.
At every hall each squad performs its 'act', perhaps a skit on
local events, a dance display in spectacular costume, or a topical send-up of a
popular TV show or pop group.
Every guizer has a duty (as the 'Up Helly A' Song' says) to dance with at
least one of the ladies in the hall, before taking yet another dram.
The 'evening' usually finishes at around 8am in the morning. Needless to say, the day after Up-Helly-Aa is a holiday in Lerwick !
(Words courtesy of Hans
Marter, photos courtesy of Graeme Storey)
