The event that brought us here is Up Helly Aa, a Viking-themed fire festival celebrating the beginning of the end of the long dark winter nights. Shetland is actually closer to Norway than to mainland Scotland, and has many archaeological remnants and cultural aspects that are Norse. We are very far north, the same latitude as St. Petersburg, Russia, and Churchill, Manitoba, and they see only about six hours of daylight here at the darkest season.
Local teams plan and prepare for much of the year, and this morning’s parade was by Vikings in raven-wing helmets, with axes and shields, marching through the town of Lerwick. The day will be capped off tonight with the burning of a Viking ship (built each year for this specific purpose). The 1,000 or so participants are made up of many “squads”, with the lead squad or Jarl’s Squad wearing the Viking dress. Theirs was the parade we followed this morning. Here’s a link to a YouTube video, hope it works for you if you have any interest in seeing it:
https://www.shetland.org/videos/recent-videos/shetlands-fire-festival-season
Surprisingly, Geoff turned out to be a media darling. Perhaps because of his unusual hat, bought in Iceland a few years ago, he was interviewed on-camera by the BBC about his impressions of Shetland and the festival, and then about 10 minutes later he had a similar interview by Agence France-Presse!
The festivities continue this afternoon. We scored tickets for a music concert, then will attend the torchlight parade and boat burning, and — hoping we can stay awake for this — we got tickets for a party after the boat burning tonight 🔥 🔥 🔥
I can see why Geoff’s hat garnered attention. Being able to do the interviews in both languages made him a star. Stay awake for everything, this is a once in a lifetime kind of trip.
Those Vikings are tough – they are sporting bare arms while Geoff looks ready for an arctic storm.