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Fire and fancy dress as Shetlanders honor their Viking heritage

The Guizer Jarl is silhouetted as members of his Viking Squad walk around a long boat with burning torches during the annual Up-Helly-Aa Festival in Lerwick, Scotland, on Tuesday. The event culminates with up to 1,000 ''guizers'' (men in costume) throwing flaming torches into a Viking longship. PHOTO: AFP

One of Britain's most remote communities came together on Tuesday to celebrate its Viking heritage with a spectacular festival of fire and fancy dress.

During "Up-Helly-Aa," hundreds of residents of the Shetland Islands, off northern Scotland, dressed up as Norsemen -- complete with helmets, chain mail and axes -- or in other fancy dress for a day and night of raucous partying.

The high point of the festivities was an evening parade through Lerwick featuring 900 people brandishing fiery torches which sent a blanket of smoke and sparks over the port town, Shetland's biggest.

At the center of the procession was a specially crafted Viking longship, which was set on fire at the end of the procession when all the marchers threw their torches into it, creating a giant, intense pyre.

Celebrations were continuing through the night as teams of "guizers" -- the roughly 1,000 locals taking part in the procession -- toured parties performing songs and sketches.

As well as blazing an unforgettable spectacle across the night sky, observers say Up-Helly-Aa, which is largely funded by locals themselves, also highlights Shetland's strong and enduring sense of cohesion.

Members of the Jarl Viking Squad carry burning torches through the streets during the annual Up-Helly-Aa Festival in Lerwick, Scotland, on Tuesday. PHOTO: AFP

The festival represents something "very important and quite distinctively Shetland and that is the community working together as a community," said Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat member of parliament who represents the islands.

This allows Shetland to incorporate 21st century newcomers as it did the Vikings when they invaded in the late 8th and early 9th centuries, he suggested, contrasting that flexibility with the rest of Britain, where immigration is still highly sensitive.

The community spirit is highlighted by the "guizer jarl's squad" -- a group of 72 men who head the evening parade dressed as Vikings.

Typically, they spend a couple of years and around ?2,000 (US$3,960) each of their own money on their hand-crafted, perfectly detailed costumes and associated costs.

On the day of Up-Helly-Aa, they tour local hospitals and schools performing Viking songs and posing for pictures with onlookers. They will also visit elsewhere in Scotland and Norway afterwards.

"It's a privilege and an honor to be doing this," said Ryan Wright, 27, who when he is not decked out in full norse attire is a chef and truck driver. "I wouldn't save ?1,600 for a holiday but I would happily spend it on a suit that I would wear five or six times and then put in the attic. You grow up with Up-Helly-Aa. Most people here consider themselves more Scandinavian than Shetlander."

Lewie Tulloch, 42, a building warehouseman, said: "It's just a big festival that's always been here and when you grow up here, it's part of you."

Carmichael said Shetland's "tremendously strong sense of community" allowed it to take in newcomers from mainland Scotland and elsewhere with relative ease.

"The Vikings came and were absorbed and in more recent history we had Klondikers coming in in the 70s and 80s which were big Russian factory ships, we've got a fair share of eastern Europeans now working here in a lot of fish houses, a lot of the skilled trade," he said. "The attitude that Shetland takes towards immigration I think is an exemplar to the rest of the country ... in the rest of the country, immigration is an amazingly divisive issue. In Shetland, our experience has been that actually it's been quite a unifying experience."

He cited two recent examples where overwhelming support from Shetlanders had forced officials to change their mind about foreigners living on the islands.

One of the cases involved Sakchai Makao, a Thai man who had faced deportation after being convicted of fireraising.

He joined in Tuesday's parade after being given leave to remain in 2006 after some 10,000 of the island's 23,000 residents signed a petition in his favor.

Carmichael said the sense of community was strengthened by the geography of the islands, the northernmost point in Britain.

The archipelago starts 210km northeast of the Scottish mainland, consists of more than 100 islands and is 161km long.

Organizers say Up-Helly-Aa sprang up in the late 19th century as serious-minded residents tried to curb the traditionally raucous Christmas and New Year celebrations and that the name was simply improvised.
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