Blazing mad, female Vikings banned from joining fire festival!
Women warriors launch raid on men-only tradition
IT is an ancient, annual tradition that celebrates Shetland’s Viking ancestry.
But the world-famous Up Helly Aa festival is locked in a bitter gender battle after organisers stopped local women taking part.
Every year, thousands of visitors descend on the island capital, Lerwick, to witness the spectacular fire festival on the last Tuesday of January that culminates in a torchlit procession and the burning of a Viking galley.
Traditionally, only men donned armour and took up shields and swords for the festivities.
But there are now 12 Up Helly Aa community events, with most having long since been open to women.
The decision by organisers to stop female warriors taking part in the main showstopping climax has cast a shadow over next year’s festival.
Karrol Scott of the Shetland For Up Helly Aa Equality Group has now demanded that they reverse the ban on women.
In an email to committee members, the group wrote: ‘This is 2018. It’s time for equality to arrive in Lerwick. Our squad name is #metoo.’
The backlash began after Miss Scott attempted to register a mixed team for the procession, but was refused.
She said her squad had been met with hostility from men while queuing to try to register.
In the end, the lengthy wait by Miss Scott and her team was to prove in vain after the festival registrar turned them away.
She told the Press and Journal: ‘The atmosphere was generally jovial, with a few startled faces – and only one openly hostile local businessman expressing his opinion, in a menacing tone, that we would never be allowed to register.
‘When it was finally our turn to go up the stairs to speak to the registrar, the person conducting the process – who refused to give his name for the record – asked the person behind us in the queue to go up.
‘We protested that we were next and that we wanted to register our mixed squad – as per the instructions in their newspaper advert, producing a copy for him to read – but he refused to allow us access, stating that only squads already registered could register squad names.’
The group said it had emailed the Lerwick Up Helly Aa committee, expressing its dissatisfaction with the process.
It wrote: ‘We understand that there are currently no female members of any squad in Lerwick Up Helly Aa.
‘The women of the Shetland for Up Helly Aa Equality Group are hereby formally registering an interest in joining – either by having our own mixed squad or by requesting that females are allowed into the existing squads.’
Richard Moar, joint honorary secretary of Lerwick Up Helly Aa, did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.
Recent research suggests female Vikings may have fought as ‘shield maidens’. They appear in Norse folklore and some scholars have argued that they may have been linked to Brunnhilde and her Valkyrie sisters immortalised in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
The main Up Helly Aa celebration in Lerwick is led by the Guizer Jarl, supported by the Jarl Squad. The torch-lit procession culminates in a replica Viking longboat being set alight.
Volunteers are responsible for the construction of the longboat and thousands of torches.
The burning galley represents the Norse way of the dead, when a Jarl’s soul would be sent seawards in his war boat.
‘Time for equality to arrive’