Up Helly Aa

Common card · No. 233046

Up Helly Aa (Shaetlan pronunciation: [ˌɔp hɛli ˈaː] UP-hel-ee-AH; literally "Up Holy [Day] All") is a type of fire festival held annually from January to March in various communities in Shetland, Scotland, to mark the end of the Yule season. Each festival involves a torchlit procession by squads of costumed participants (known as guizers) that culminates in the burning of an imitation Viking galley. The largest festival is held in Lerwick, Shetland's capital, and involves a procession of up to a thousand guizers who march through the streets of Lerwick on the last Tuesday in January. The other rural festivals (known as the 'country' Up Helly Aas) see lower numbers of participants in accordance with their lower populations.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0