Up-helly-aa Custom, Culture, and Community in Shetland

Up-Helly-Aa is Europe's largest and most spectacular winter fire festival. In the biting Arctic wind on the last Tuesday of every January, a Guizer Jarl leads one thousand men in guising costumes with flaming torches through the streets of Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Isles, accompanying a Viking galley to its ceremonial burning.