Tag: Up Helly Aa

A year ago I was at Up Helly Aa

Up Helly Aa has been and gone again. It’s always on the last Tuesday of January and brightens some of the darkest days in the British winter. Shetland being so far north, it gets even gloomier than Manchester. Something hard to believe with the gloomy, drizzly weather we’ve been having lately.

Last year I was fortunate to be able to spend a week in Shetland and attend the festivities. I got to have one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life (and there have been a few!) and to cross a challenge off my 60 things to do before I’m 60 list.

I’ve been following it closely online this year and wishing I was there. I’ve just been reminiscing with my photos. The low light, rain and fast moving Vikings made it difficult to get good photos, but even the worst photos have good memories behind them and I love looking back at them. I’ve selected a few of the better ones and have put together a Flickr album.

Up Helly Aa

I’ve written a few other posts on Up Helly Aa and they can be found by clicking on the links below.

After my trip last year, I wrote about the day and the night parts of the festival.

I’ve also written an overview of what Up Helly Aa is.

My potted history of the festival can be found here.

The Up Helly Aa website can be found here.

 

Up Helly Aa 2015 (the night)

Burly men in beards and bras. Definitely a night to remember.

As I watched the flames die down and the burning galley turn to ash, I was buzzing with everything I’d seen, heard, felt and smelt so far this evening. It was after 9pm, but the night was only just beginning. It would be at least 12 hours until I’d get to bed. With exhilaration coursing through my veins and anticipation tingling my nerve endings I made my way to the primary school where the evening’s entertainment was just beginning.

It was already busy when I arrived. I gave my name at the door and, thanks to Linda, the daughter-in-law of the man I’d met earlier at the galley, my name was on the list and in exchange for 25 quid I was given a wristband. Up Helly Aa is expensive. The costs involved in making the detailed costumes and weaponry and building the galley are no mean amount. I don’t know if any of my £25 went into a general Up Helly Aa fund or if it was all to cover the costs of the evening, but either way by 8am I definitely felt I’d got my money’s worth.

A disrespectful tribute to Elvis. He was sat on the toilet which flushed each time the music changed.

I headed first for the toilets to peel off a few layers of clothing. A couple of girls were fluffing their hair and applying extra make-up. They looked very glamorous and in my trousers and plain top I felt very under-dressed. I mentally kicked myself for not having packed an outfit on the off chance I got lucky enough to be invited to a hall. Fortunately I’m not one for letting the wrong outfit get in the way of enjoying myself and I made my down to the far end of the school corridor where I stashed my bag and extra clothing. 

Buxom ladies at a local cafe

This area was doubling as the ‘bar’ area and people were sat around tables enjoying a beer, glass of wine or something a little stronger. No alcohol is sold in the halls so it’s strictly BYO. Most people were very well prepared, with stacks of plastic glasses as well as the booze of their choice. Alcohol is not allowed in the main hall so throughout the evening people were disappearing back here to return a while later with an extra glow to their cheeks. 

Tea-dancing OAPs find themselves in an aerobic class

I found my way to the main hall and pushed through men in fancy dresses to enter. The 48 squads make their way around the 11 participating halls and put on a short performance in each. There are two to three squads in each hall at a time and once they’ve all performed, the band strikes up and everyone is pulled up onto the dance floor to be whirled around in a series of traditional dances with names like Strip the Willow, Eightsome Reel and St Bernard’s Waltz. 

Green Been / Red to Come – the numbers representing the squads

A board behind the band held the numbers representing each squad. The numbers started out red and were changed to green once the squad had performed. 

‘I Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore’


As the squads are all male and many performances require female characters, the squads adhere to the traditions of theatre from years’ past and enthusiastically embrace cross-dressing. It is said that lingerie shops in Lerwick do a roaring trade in the month before Up Helly Aa with all the butch builders, plumbers and roadworkers piling in to buy their bras. Shakespeare would have been proud.

 

The Jarl’s squad arrived at about 12.30am

As the squads are meant to be in disguise most performers wear masks, heavy make-up or dark glasses, only revealing their identities once their performance is finished.  

They must’ve been feeling hot



The performances are outlandish and tend to be risqué with the squads having names like Fat Bottomed Girls (pink frocks and well-endowed bottoms) and Horny Germans (lederhosen and William Tell hats). Some acts had performers removing clothes, thrusting their pelvises and generally behaving in ways you wouldn’t want your granny to see. Except the grannies here had seen it all many times before and didn’t bat an eyelid. Other performances poked fun at local issues, one such being the skit performed by the Clangers. The squad were dressed as the pink woolly Clangers from the 1970’s children’s TV programme and in the style of the programme, which was quite subversive in some of the issues it alluded to, pulled no punches in referring to all the ‘clangers’ they say Shetland Islands Council have been responsible for. 

‘Fat Bottomed Girls’

As well as performances and dancing and trips to the bar there were visits to the buffet. Hot soup was being served along with unlimited mugs of tea. Plates were continually being replenished with sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. The tea was welcome, especially when it got to about 5am and I was starting to flag. A couple of mugs of tea and I was raring to go again. 

A ‘Fat Bottomed Girl’ watching ‘Putindabootin’ Russian dancers


It did strike me that, despite all the merriment, party-spirit and alcohol, no-one seemed really drunk. There was none of the falling around you see on Saturday nights in city centres. No-one burst into tears or started a fight. And I didn’t see one person throw up. I don’t know if it was because of the mixed age group or because everyone knows everyone else or just because of the laid-back character Shetlanders all seem to share, but I do know I liked it. 

He wasn’t really naked

By the time the last squads had performed, the last tunes had been danced to, and the last mugs of tea had been supped it was 8am. There weren’t quite as many people as there had been earlier, but there were still a lot. Everyone was still cheerful as they made their way out, shouting their byes and dispersing to their beds. 

In need of a bikini wax

I walked back to Tesco car park where I’d left my van. I was surprised to see the burger van in the car park was open for business and had a customer. How could anyone still be hungry after all the food in the halls? I wasn’t surprised however, to see the customer was a man wearing a tutu. 

In need of a diet


Note: my photos are RUBBISH. Trying to take photos of fast-moving performers indoors whilst facing a spotlight was a challenge way beyond my photographic abilities. I’ve included a few here anyway as they at least give an idea of what some of the performances were like.


To read about Up Helly Aa day click here.


I’ve written about the history and traditions of Up Helly Aa here and here.


The main Up Helly Aa website is here.

Up Helly Aa 2015 (the day)

Days don’t get much better than this.

The Up Helly Aa flag flying over the town hall

It looked as though it was going to rain, but I wasn’t worried. Up Helly Aa NEVER gets cancelled because of the weather. Only world wars have been able to stop it (and that was probably due only to the lack of men). It was postponed at the last minute for Winston Churchill’s funeral but no-one was very happy about that (and still aren’t if the lack of interest in his 50th anniversary was anything to go by). Far too many sandwiches went to waste and people who’d come up specially ended up missing it. So that’ll never happen again.

I wasn’t in any particular hurry as I knew the Jarl’s squad were getting breakfast and facial tattoos in Islesburgh Community Centre and I wouldn’t be allowed in. I’ve been able to pass myself off as a lot of things, but I don’t think even I’d pull off impersonating a large bearded Viking. After breakfast the squad were taking the galley down to the waterfront for an official photo session and then leaving it there for the rest of the day whilst they went around town visiting care homes, schools and the hospital. I thought the waterfront would be too crowded so instead waited near the town hall. Afterwards, when I saw how good the photos of the whole squad atop the galley looked, I wished I had gone myself. Instead, the first I saw of them was when they came marching up the road to the town hall, roaring and generally making a lot of noise. They did look rather magnificent. 

The Vikings are here!
Raven wings and a mighty beard

So much care had been put into the costumes and weaponry: textiles, chainmail, carved, highly polished wood, intricately patterned metalwork, and of the course the Jarl’s helmet resplendent with its raven wings. Once they’d all gone into the town hall I went down to the harbour to look at the galley. This was equally magnificent. The level of detail equally intricate. 

 

There were still quite a few people around and as I waited for a chance to take a people-free photo, I got chatting to the man who was looking after the galley. He told me his son will be Guizer Jarl next year and so this time next year he will be touring the care homes in full Viking dress rather than standing in a raincoat guarding the galley. 

 

Named after a penguin named after a Viking

He was dismayed to hear I wouldn’t be going to any of the halls. The halls are a really important part of Up Helly Aa, but all are privately run. The festival is a really special time for Shetlanders. If islanders who have moved away are going to come home only once in the year, it will often be for Up Helly Aa. People I spoke to told me it’s more important and a bigger event than Christmas, Easter or birthdays. It’s easy to understand then why, although they’re happy for outsiders to watch the parade, the halls are private and for friends and family only. To have a load of tourists in your hall would be the equivalent of having a load of tourists come round to your house on Christmas Day morning to watch you open your presents. You probably don’t mind the tourists coming along to the carol concert or midnight mass, but there is a line you don’t want them to step over. I understood this and accepted that, as much as I would like to, I wouldn’t be going to any halls.

Spot the penguin


I should have known better. This is Shetland after all. People are friendly and rules are just there to, yeah, well, whatever. John told me his daughter-in-law (wife of next year’s Jarl) was running one of the halls and that when he got home he would ask her if there was a spare ticket for me. He took my mobile number so he could let me know. Just in case he called over some other people and got me the phone number of someone running a different hall, so I had a backup plan if his daughter-in-law didn’t have any tickets. 

 

Even the boats have beards


I spent part of the afternoon wandering round town. The window displays in the shops all had an Up Helly Aa theme. Even Specsavers had joined in with a poster depicting a Viking squad hauling a fishing boat along to the burning place instead of their galley, unaware of the irate fisherman chasing them; the caption was, of course, ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’. As well as Vikings, there was quite a penguin theme. This was because the Guizer Jarl is known by the nickname ‘Penguin’. There was a penguin design painted onto the galley which was named Nils Olav after a penguin in Edinburgh zoo with the same name.

The Bill had been attached to the market cross earlier that morning. It’s a carefully hand-inscribed proclamation satirising local events and notable people from the past year. In red and black painted text it lampoons the discussion around school closures, the unreliability of the Northlink ferries and the controvesial Mareel arts centre. It took me several readings to understand most of it, but even though I try to keep up with Shetland news, there were still parts that were over my head. 

Crowding into the museum


The Jarl’s squad was due at the museum in the late afternoon, so I made my way over in plenty of time. The entrance hall was already quite crowded with people waiting to see Vikings. A couple of guys were keeping everyone entertained with live music. The Jarl’s band arrived first and they squeezed in with their bulky instruments and got set up. Then the rest of the Vikings arrived. Before they came in I would have said it was impossible to fit seventy Vikings all in bulky costumes into the already crowded space. But fit they did. More and more of them pushed through the doors and spectators were crushed back to the walls. They could have shown rush hour commuters on London Underground a trick or two.  

For their theme song, they had chosen Daydream Believer, albeit with a few word changes. As their voices reverberated around the hall, big grins on their faces, light glinting of their chain mail, swords and double-headed axes, I knew I’ll never be able to hear that song again without thinking of Vikings.

Just 2 Vikings having a chat

Following the sing-song everyone piled outside where the Vikings lit their torches for a TV interview. Dousing the fire in the harbour, they then did what all good Vikings do and drove off on their bus.

TV interview



The Junior Jarl’s galley

Wandering back up to the town hall I was in time to see the Junior Jarl’s squad setting off on their parade. The schoolboys also have real torches and proudly set off marching, pulling their galley to the playing fields where they would burn it. It was just starting to rain, but didn’t manage more than a few drops before stopping again in plenty of time for the main parade.



Schoolboys with a burning mission



I went back to my van which I’d moved to Tesco car park so I wouldn’t have too far to walk at the end of the night. As I got my layers on ready to stand around for a few hours watching the main parade and galley burning my phone rang. Yes! I had a ticket. It’s the custom to dress up for the halls but as I hadn’t expected to go to one I didn’t have any posh clothes with me. I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me though. I put a slightly nicer top on over my thermals and considered myself ready. 

 

By 7pm the streets were heaving. I think Shetland’s entire 22,000 strong population, along with several thousand visitors had all congregated on the same few streets. I’m not used to crowds in Shetland. All 48 squads take part in the main parade. As they are nearly all holding burning torches, not all of them are wearing their costumes (or disguises). If the outfit is likely to be flammable (or affected by the weather) they wear ordinary clothes on the march and change before starting their rounds of the halls. The torches are lit, the streetlights go out.

At 7.30pm a rocket is fired from the town hall and they’re off. As 1000 men wind their way round the route a ring of fire encircles the spectators. It’s dark, in the distance only the line of fire can be seen. Even when they are marching behind buildings, the sky is strangely lit up in shades of flickering oranges and reds like an all-encompassing sunset.

I had a great spot right at the kerbside. The smell of paraffin, the heat from the blazing torches, the singing and Viking yells, a thousand men marching past, flames flickering, everything seeming to move so quickly my eyes struggled to focus, let alone my camera. I felt like every one of my senses was being overloaded and maxed out. Still they marched. Still they yelled. Still the flames flared devouring the oxygen from the street.

Earlier John (the man guarding the galley) had pointed out that nowhere else could you give a thousand men a bottle of whisky each and not expect trouble. Here, they not only give them a bottle of whisky but a flaming torch and then plonk them down in the middle of this heady atmosphere. Trouble? Of course not. I don’t know if it’s due to the laidback Shetland attitude or if it’s because this is such an important tradition. Although there’s plenty of alcohol involved, it’s taken far too seriously and with too much respect to be turned into a free-for-all piss-up.



Finally the squads made their way through the gates into the playing fields and stood around the galley waiting for the Jarl to disembark and give the signal for the torches to be hurled onto the galley. It caught light quickly and a year’s work was turned into a bonfire. I’d moved to the road above the playing fields but was struggling to see over people’s heads. Standing on tip-toe I peered over shoulders. The boat took a long time to burn and people started to move away whilst the blaze was still roaring. I got a better view then and watched as the dragon head slowly drooped and fell, succumbing to the flames.

 

I stayed till the fire was almost out. Most people had left by then, but I wasn’t in any hurry as I didn’t have to be at the hall till 9.30pm. I wandered round to the other side of the playing fields. Most of the squads had left as they needed to get into their costumes. A few men were left watching the last of the flames die down. For some reason one of them decided to do the Haka – the Maori war dance made famous outside of New Zealand by the All Blacks who perform it at the start of their rugby games. A Viking doing the Haka; now that’s a cultural mish-mash I wasn’t expecting to see. 




I chatted to an older guy who told me he’d spent some of his younger years around Manchester and Lancashire and then slowly made my way to the hall, buzzing from what I’d experienced so far and excited about what was to come.

 

To be continued …




To find the continuation in which I write about the Up Helly Aa night in the halls click here.

I wrote about the Up Helly Aa traditions here and about the history here.

You can find the main Up Helly Aa website here.



A Potted History of Up Helly Aa

A brief look at the origins of Up Helly Aa.

Ancient Roots


Up Helly Aa, as it’s known today, is a relatively recent introduction to the Shetland calendar, though its origins are rooted far back in time. The torchlit procession and burning of the galley (Viking longship) stem from the ritual cremations of Norse chieftains and the ancient pagan ceremonies held to welcome the return of the sun following the winter solstice. The elaborate use of disguises seen today echo prehistoric fertility rites; even until the Middle Ages people dressed in straw costumes to encourage the gods to bless them with bountiful crops and productive animals. The feasting and all-night partying is reminiscent of the Viking drinking halls of times gone by. Norse skalds were known for their sharp wit and today this tradition is continued in the form of the ‘Bill’ which is displayed on the Market Cross from early morning on the day of Up Helly Aa.


A Different Calendar to the Rest of the UK


Shetland retained the Julian calendar long after the rest of the UK adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. This meant Christmas was celebrated on the modern-equivalent of January 5th, New Year on January 12th, and Uphellia which marked the end of the Yuletide festivities was celebrated 24 days after Christmas making it the 29th January. The celebrations involved fire and feasting, but not Vikings.


It’s all Napoleon’s Fault


The Auld Yule and Auld New Year (old Christmas and New Year) were celebrated in Lerwick with guizers (people in disguise) grouping together to visit private houses and be treated to food and drink. The festivities were lively and lasted all night. Uphellia festivities, on the other hand, are thought to have been more of a rural tradition, presumably because appeasing pagan gods in the hope of ensuring a good crop was of far more relevance to the country folk than the townsfolk. The festival only really spread to the main town of Lerwick when soldiers and sailors returning from the Napoleonic Wars brought their newly-acquired tastes for firearms and debaucherous partying with them. The adoption of Uphellia was a good excuse to let their hair down, kick their heels up and set fire to things.


This year’s Up Helly Aa programme quotes the diary entry of a Methodist missionary who visited in 1824:

‘the whole town was in an uproar: from twelve o’clock last night until late this night blowing of horns, beating of drums, tinkling of old kettles, firing of guns, shouting, bawling, fiddling, fifeing, drinking, fighting. This was the state of the town all the night – the street was thronged with people as any fair I ever saw in England.’



A Merging of Traditions (and calendars)


Over time the Auld Yule and Auld New Year traditions in Lerwick melded with the rural Uphellia celebrations in the beginnings of the Up Helly Aa festival we see today. By 1879 it was decided that Christmas and New Year would follow the rest of Britain and be held on the 25th December and 1st January. The Uphellia celebrations continued to adhere to the old calendar and were still held on January 29th.


Burning Barrels of Tar


Around 1840 burning tar barrels were rolled down Lerwick’s narrow main street for the first time. Rum or beer casks were cut in half and filled with wood shavings mixed with coal tar (the tar being acquired as it was ‘accidently’ left outside the gasworks). Up to ten barrels would be fastened to a trolley and pulled, burning, through the street. This continued until the 1870s when the ideas that are still seen today started to come into play. The tar barrels had been dirty and dangerous, more so because rival groups often came to blows when they met in the street. Special constables were introduced to little effect. Despite complaints by the middle classes and interventions by the town council it seems that the tar barrelling only came to an end because the interests of the participants were changing and enthusiasm was developing in Shetland’s Viking past.


And then there were Vikings


Firstly, the festival began to be known as Up Helly Aa (sometimes Up Helly A’) and, rather than the 29th, the last Tuesday in January was fixed as the date. Guizing was introduced in a much more elaborate form, as was the torchlight procession. The first clear Viking themes were introduced in 1877 and in 1881 the first torchlight procession took place with 60 torches carried through the street. By the late 1880s the galley (Viking longship) had appeared. In 1906 the first Guizer Jarl (chief guizer) was appointed.


It was only after the First World War that the tradition of the Guizer Jarl having his own squad of Vikings became an annual event. Although money was tight in the 1930s the festival limped through. It was in these poverty stricken times that the ‘Bill’ poking fun at those in charge became the greatly anticipated proclamation it is today. The BBC filmed the festival in 1949 and it was from this year on, that the previously haphazard timings became the tightly adhered to schedule we see today. Since 1956 there has also been a Junior Jarl’s squad.




For more about the modern celebrations see here for a post I’ve previously written.
You can find the Up Helly Aa website here.

I’m going to Up Helly Aa!

I’ve got the chance to go to Up Helly Aa and I’m jumping at it.

Up Helly Aa has fascinated me ever since I started visiting Shetland and first heard about it. There are various Up Helly Aa festivals held between January and March in different parts of Shetland, but the main festival, the biggie, the Up Helly Aa to end all Up Helly Aas is held in Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January. This presented a problem for me as the last Tuesday in January is always smack-bang in the middle of term time. And it’s not as though Lerwick is a place I can just nip up to for a few hours in the evening and be back in time to get a good night’s sleep ready for school the next morning.


Because of this, I made a pact with myself that the first chance I get I will be there. As I’m not teaching at the moment that chance is now. I’ve been keeping an eye on the ferries and at this time of year there are a lot of delays and cancellations due to the weather, so I need to plan to arrive a few days in advance just in case. Imagine shelling out all that money and getting really excited just to turn up in Aberdeen the day before the festival to be told the ferry isn’t leaving tonight. It’s not a risk I’m prepared to take.


I’m going to go up in the van so I have a place to sleep. It’s expensive taking a vehicle on the ferry and as I’ll be alone I won’t have anyone to split the cost with. Add to that the cost of fuel and this isn’t going to be a cheap trip. But without the van I’d have to pay for accommodation and would be limited in what I could do as public transport isn’t the greatest. I’d also have to add on the cost of train fares to Aberdeen and if I arrived off the train in Aberdeen to find the ferry wasn’t leaving I’d be left hunting for last minute accommodation and shelling out again.


I’m wondering if I’m a little mad planning to spend a week sleeping in the back of a van on a small North Atlantic island in January. But, thanks to the Gulf Stream, Shetland doesn’t get anywhere near as cold as other places on the same latitude do in winter; there’s not a lot of snow and temperatures don’t drop much below zero. So I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I will take my duvet as well as my winter sleeping bag.


I wrote about Up Helly Aa here

Up Helly Aa

Learning about Up Helly Aa

I’ve decided to add attending the Up Helly Aa festivities to my list as it’s something that would be amazing to see, but quite difficult because of the time of year. Not school holidays. So whenever I find myself with time off for whatever reason, at the right time of year, I’m heading up to Shetland to see Vikings and burning boats.

The main festival is in Lerwick and is held on the last Tuesday in January, but there are others held throughout the islands until the end of March. The parade and boat burning is open to everyone and of course would be wonderful, but the real fun seems to happen in the evenings when the various Jarl squads (Viking gangs) go round lots of halls and basically party all night. The halls are private invitation only and so to get the most out of the experience I’d have to sneak an invite. This might be easier to do in the islands rather than in Lerwick.

As I’m in Lerwick,  I went to the Up Helly Aa exhibition in the boat shed. There were lots of costumes, shields, and part of a replica boat displayed. As well as Viking costumes, the various squads each choose a theme and people dress according to the theme, so there were also costumes in the shape of cartoon characters, chocolate bars and so on.

I watched a video showing the year long preparations for the festival and what happens on the day itself. The preparations involve the making of the boat, all costumes, shields and torches. During the day the squads visit schools, the old folks’ home, the hospital, etc so that everyone gets to be involved. Then they have the main march through misty, hazy, gloomy, drizzly, wintry Lerwick. It looked so atmostpheric on the film. At the end of the march the boat is burnt. It doesn’t get put to sea as I’d thought, but is burnt on dry land. All the Vikings toss their burning torches on to it. As they stand all around it I wondered what would happen if one tossed their torch too far and it sailed over the top into the crowd on the other side!

Some of the snippets of interesting info I picked up in the exhibition include:

  • The lead Viking is known as the Guizer Jarl – ‘Guizer’ comes from the word ‘disguise’ – the members of the various squads wear masks all day so no-one knows who they are. However, the members of the Guizer Jarl’s squad are all dressed as Vikings and don’t wear masks meaning they can be identified. They all seem to have beards though – do they grow them specially for the event?
  • Only men can go on the parade.
  • You have to live in Shetland for five years before you can join a squad.
  • You have to be chosen to be on the organising committee.
  • You work your way up through the ranks on the committee for 15 years – then in the 16th year you are Guizer Jarl.
  • You start as a ‘water-carrier’ making sure everyone in the squad has enough water in their whisky.
  • It’s very expensive – you need to save up to be Jarl and to raise a lot of money.
  • During the day the Guizer Jarl’s squads go round the schools, old people’s homes and the hospital performing, as well as performing and parading in the streets.
  • Each squad has a theme for their costumes and performance which is kept secret – only the committee knows to make sure there is no overlap.
  • In the evening, there is a torchlit parade through Lerwick ending with the burning of the boat.
  • Then the squads spend the rest of the night going round the halls, eating, drinking and performing.
  • Each squad goes to each hall in a pre-planned order. The Guizer Jarl’s squad goes the opposite way round to the others so they meet each of the others in turn.
  • Torches are made from 4ft long, thick pieces of wood. Three sacks are rolled round the end and nailed into place. A fourth sack is nailed over the top. Cement is put where the sacks and pole meet to prevent the pole from catching light.
  • The sacking end of the pole is soaked in parafin for about 24 hrs. The whole thing ends up weighing 14lbs.
  • After Up Helly Aa the Guizer Jarl joins the ex-Jarls and starts at the beginning again as a water-carrier. The job of the exes is to advise the others.
  • The halls are privately rented by people who invite their family and friends and prepare loads of food. As they are private you can only go to them if you have been invited.
  • The hall parties last all night.
  • The schools now have junior Jarl squads.

What a festival! And in one of my favourite places too.