It began with a flare fired overhead into the darkness. Then the torches erupted into flame, casting an intense orange glow over a squad of young Vikings, other boys and, for the first time, torch-carrying girls.
Up Helly Aa, the Viking-inspired fire festival which has transformed the harsh dark winters on Shetland for more than 140 years, was under way. First came the junior procession, torches held aloft before being thrown on to a ceremonial Viking longship, and later came the adult parade, 900-people strong, braving gusting winds, sleet and rain.
Chromed armour and helmets shone; raven feathers were framed in silhouette by the torches; woollen capes billowed in the stiff Atlantic wind and ceremonial axes were thrust into the night air before scores of torches were flung on to the wooden longship, quickly incinerated.
Suspended for the last two years by the Covid crisis, this year’s Up Helly Aa in Lerwick, Shetland’s capital, is historic. Women and girls have been admitted for the first time after a decades’ long campaign for equality, and several sporadic rebellions.
The 108-strong junior parade, children aged 11 to 14, has set the equalities standard with 27 girls joining this year as guizers – the torch-carrying celebrants who parade behind the Viking-clad jarl or chief’s squad which leads the procession.
A handful of women and another three girls then joined the adult procession as guizers in fancy dress or as assistants, parading behind the jarl squad and this year’s guizer jarl, Neil Moncrieff.
Chloe Bryant, 11, was one of the 27 girls involved for the first time in the junior parade. She said it had been “really exciting and good” to be involved, adding that she was keen to carry a torch because it was an era-defining moment for Lerwick’s women and girls.
Zara Pennington, a leading figure in the feminist Reclaim the Raven campaign which has, with its sister organisation Up Helly Aa for Aa, spearheaded the equalities campaign, said this small change was a defining moment.
“We are so glad to see girls in junior Up Helly Aa – that was a major breakthrough for equality; and I would be so happy to see women in the seniors,” she said. “It’s a major step forward for women’s equality in Shetland.”
The inevitability of the reform became clear last May when Shetland Islands council become led, for the first time, by three women. Andrea Manson was elected as convenor or presiding officer; its political leader, Emma Macdonald, and chief executive, Maggie Sandison, are also female.
That sent a powerful signal to Lerwick’s all-male Up Helly Aa committee; smaller Up Helly Aa festivals in Shetland have long allowed women to take part – one electing a female jarl, or earl, in 2015, but Lerwick’s men had still resisted.
“It was a moment of clarity,” Manson said. For James Morrison, this year’s junior jarl, there was no fuss among the boys about girls joining: “It’s good that they get a go,” he said.
It emerged during the senior parade that Sandison was one of the first four women guizers, in squad 35, Whisky Galore.
“How could you turn down such an offer?” she said. “It is fantastic that Up Helly Aa is happening again this year, and it is great that from this year we can all be in it. I am absolutely pleased to see it changing.”
On the Scottish mainland, other powerful male-only institutions had already bowed to intense local and national pressure to accept gender equality, including the Royal & Ancient and Muirfield golf clubs, and the common riding festivals of the Scottish Borders.
In Shetland, however, it is understood the warnings were blunt: unless Lerwick’s organising committee allowed women to take part, their use of publicly-owned facilities – including the play park where longships were burned – could well be withdrawn.
Shetland’s Up Helly Aa, its name derived from the Norn, the Norse-derived dialect of Shetland, for the Christian festival days after Christmas, is a Victorian-era invention. The first torchlit procession was held in 1881, and the Viking theme began in 1889.
Equalities activists are unsure how soon women will join Lerwick’s Viking-dressed jarl squad. Jarl squads are chosen up to 16 years in advance, which makes their members very protective about their positions, but a spokeswoman for Up Helly Aa for Aa said that may quickly change.
“Every squad has an allowance of members and it will be up to squad members to invite women into their squads,” she said. “Rumour has it that there may be some female members of next year’s jarl squad! We will not know until the festival takes place.”
Women have intervened in the past. In 1902, a group of women hid their identities in costumes and joined in, but were detected. In 1985, a group of 13-year-old girls tried to form a squad to join the then male-only junior Up Helly Aa. That rebellion was quickly quashed.
The following year Dr Susan Bowie, the GP for Hillswick in north-west Shetland, crashed the party by joining one squad wearing a white suit, red shirt and tie. Bowie was eventually rumbled early the following morning, but she said: “The world didn’t end. I had an excellent time.” The squad which allowed her in was, however, disciplined.
The decision to admit women remains divisive. “The majority of Lerwick women want it to remain the same … it’s tradition, isn’t it?” said one woman – dressed in Celtic motif knitwear with the design of this year’s jarl squad’s capes – who wished to remain anonymous.
Another two local women, again wearing similar woollen hats and scarves, were sanguine about the admission of women.
“I don’t mind, to be honest,” said one. “I prefer the tradition [of men-only], but I’m not really bothered,” said her companion. For Manson, that shows the question is settled.
