2024 is the first year where women join the Jarl’s squad. The Jarl's Squad is a key feature of the Up Helly Aa festival, representing a Viking chief.

Up Helly Aa is the spectacular Shetland Viking festival which always takes place on the last Tuesday of January. This year, for the first time in its history, women and girls will help lead the ...

The annual Viking-inspired fire festival of Up Helly Aa, described by organizers as “a northern Mardi Gras,” was held in the town of Lerwick in Scotland’s Shetland Islands on Tuesday ...

Members of the Up Helly Aa festival's 'Jarl Squad' carry flaming torches through the streets of Lerwick Participants don Viking-style clothing and carry around 1,000 lit torches through the town ...

For Calum Grains, who had to wait for 17 years to take up his position as the 2025 Guizer Jarl, the last Tuesday in January ...

The first sign of this new development appeared in 1877, but it was not until the late 1880s that a Viking longship – the “galley” – appeared, and as late as 1906 that “Guizer Jarl ...

Revellers have gathered on Shetland for the annual Up Helly Aa fire festival. The event marks the end of the Yule season in Nordic culture, and features “guizers” in Viking costume marching ...

Viking warriors drew their shields, artisans displayed their wares and visitors strolled about in medieval and fantasy gear ...

This browser does not support the Video element. Grab your ax and head to your longship as LiveNOW celebrates the Scottish Shetland Islands' Nordic heritage. Tuesday, beginning at 2 p.m. ET ...