Up-Helly-Aa

Around about now–on the last Tuesday of January–the citizens of the small Shetland town of Lerwick celebrate Up-Helly-Aa, a festival around two hundred years old that harks back over a millennia in celebrating these remote Scottish islands’ Norse heritage. Essentially a fire festival hailing the reborn sun, a “Guizer Jarl’s squad” of men dressed as Vikings carries a replica Viking longship through the streets at night, followed by hundreds of “guizers” (men in various, often termed, disguises) carrying firebrands. At journey’s end, the longship is set alight, initiating a night of wild carousing (womenfolk included)

“A Saintly Savior”

Remember St Aidan (Maedoc of Ferns, d. 626) on his feast day, for this Irish bishop protected wild animals. He is symbolized by the stag that he is said to have rendered invisible to its pursuers. (A stag, or its antlers, also represents the Horned God.)

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