Scalloway Fir Festival

I dont normally put up collages but felt this occasion justified it.

The Scalloway Fire Festival is the first of the Shetland Up-Helly-Aa festivals. The main Up-Helly-Aa is held in Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January every year with over 1,000 burning torches, but outlying areas have their own smaller festivals. The main one is to signify the end of a long winter.

The main man is called the Guizer Yarl and he travels in the Galley in front of the procession of torches, he has a band of people in his squad all dressed as vikings. There are other squads who are dressed up in different themes. After the burning of the galley a lot of the public halls are open and filled with people and each squad visits and performs an act/skit (usually based on something local) and then has a few dances and moves on to the next hall. The dancing goes on well through the night. As there are so many who take part in the Lerwick one the dancing can go on till after 8am, although its not that late for the smaller fire festivals.

I hope you can follow my explanation!!