Up Helly Aa

Tis the Up Helly Aa season of fire festivals. The origin of the festivals started growing after the Napoleonic Wars, which ended in November 1815, when young Shetland men returned home. They had seen amazing things abroad and decided to liven up the winter bleak Lerwick. The hullabaloo became more and more inventive. By the 1840s the young men had started to make bombs with dynamite. Then they started to disguise themselves and drag barrels of burning tar through Lerwick. This was dirty and dangerous, so eventually the young men started to dress up in costumes, call themselves guizers and call their celebrations Up Helly Aa. The first Up Helly Aa torch procession was held in 1881. In 1889 the first galley was burned. In 1905 Haldane Burgess wrote the Up Helly Aa song.

The expression Up Helly Aa is older and comes from Scots Uphaliday, which marked the Feast of the Epiphany and end of Christmas on 6 January. The first attestation is from 1478: vphalyday.

The Shetland Up Helly Aa fire festivals are not an ancient Viking festival, but rather a blend of history and reinterpretation which has created a unique Shetland tradition that embodies the unique identity of Shetland.

Read more about the origins of Up Helly Aa and its song here:

Brian Smith (2021) Up Helly Aa has a most interesting history.

Mark Smith (2022) Origins of the Up Helly Aa Song.