The sight of Vikings parading the streets of Shetland returned today as the isles hosted their first fire festival since February 2020.
Fire festivals and Up Helly Aa events, which celebrate Shetland’s Norse links, had been postponed due to the Covid pandemic.
But on Friday morning the Scalloway Fire Festival – the first of the season – got under way.
It is being led by guizer jarl John Magnus Gray, who was scheduled to head the 2021 festival before the Covid pandemic got in the way.
As a result, Gray’s squad of 38 guizers and five musicians are perhaps enjoying a little more spotlight on them than usual.
The 46-year-old, who lives in Burra and works at the Lerwick Power Station, has been involved with the fire festival since he was a teenager.
Mr Gray admits that the two year delay has stunted the momentum a little, but he is raring to go.
He said: “The squad was on a roll, our year was coming and we were looking forward to it, and for it to all fall flat like that took the shine off things.”
“We’ve not seen a fire festival now for a peerie start, or Up Helly Aa, and it is great to see the whole thing going again.”
A day of celebrations in Scalloway
Mr Gray said he will be portraying a character Magnus Ingsgar, which reflects his mum’s maiden name Inkster.
His squad spent the day undertaking visits to places like local schools and care homes.
There is an eye-catching torch-lit parade through Scalloway before six public halls in the village and its surrounding areas open to allow folk to drink, dance and be merry until the early hours.
The Lerwick Up Helly Aa – the largest of its type in Shetland – will return on the last Tuesday in January. The last time that was held was also 2020.
But this time around women will be allowed to take part in squads – groups of ‘guizers’ who take part in the torch-lit procession before performing skits in halls at night – after Lerwick Up Helly Aa rules were changed.
There are more than 10 Up Helly Aa or fire festivals taking place all over Shetland between now and mid-March, allowing communities across the isles a chance to celebrate.
