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Up Helly Aa ( Vikings Festival)

Description: Britain's biggest fire festival and torchlight procession takes place in Lerwick on the last Tuesday every January. ... more

Up Helly Aa ( Vikings Festival) ... Over 900 colourfully dressed guisers follow the Jarl's squad of Vikings and their longship through the darkened streets of the town to th

Newest Review: ... evolved into a precisely timed and highly organised event that attracts people from all over the world. The Guizer Jarl and the Jarl Squad Being in the Jarl Squad is something of a commitment, not to say an honour. Each Jarl is chosen by a mass meeting of guizers 15 years before his turn, to give him ti me to ... more

... prepare and earn his place. This means he spends 15 years on the committee helping to organise the Up-Helly-Aa’s preceding his own. His squad will usually consist of the squad he goes out with normally each year, plus his close friends and family...more

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Up Helly Aa ( Vikings Festival): Lerwick Up-Helly-Aa (1153 words)
by - written on 18/01/01 (Very useful, 284 readings)
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Lerwicks' annual Viking festival - Seen as it’s nearly here again I thought it might be an idea to knock together a few words about what goes on in Lerwick, Shetland on the last Tuesday of January every year. It’s called Up-Helly-Aa and it's one hell of a party. The basics of it are something like this. 900 or so men of the town get dressed up, have a procession, burn a Viking longship then visit various halls in the town to perform entertainments for the amusement of all. They carouse with the womenfolk and indulge themselves with food and drink until well past dawn, which is quite late in the morning this far north. But it’s not ... Read the complete review

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