Uphellyaa

It has been slow going on the Balkan fron this week. Real life has intervened a bit to hold me back. Also this week it was the Lerwick Uphellya. For those that don't know what Uphellya is. It is a Viking fire festival celebrated in Lerwick on the last Tuesday in January. It really has very little to do with Vikings but as far as I know was dreamed up to give a vent to the exuberant crowds of young men that liked to dress up and brandish firearms in the town centre. In the years after the Napoleonic wars Shetland was seemingly awash with guys who had been pressganged and then years later came home with little thought off settling down or respect for authority.
An existing winter festival was picked where people already guized. That is the men used to dress up, often in womens clothes. Groups off guizers were formed called Jarl squads led by a Jarl. The Jarl would be somebody off note in the community and would often have previously spent years as a squad member. In the course of the year the squad meet often to practice and make their outfits and have a drink. So now all that energy that used to be spent running about with flintlocks annoying people and making noise nowadays is spent in more worthwhile persuits. In the year that each Jarl reigns they and their squad carry out worthwhile tasks like visiting the old or sick in hospital and visiting schools that sort of thing.
Those guizers who aren't members of Jarl squads still guize in squads where they dress in fancy dress and perform a wee play or song and dance routine. These usually have some basis on something that has happened in Shetland over the last year.