Up Helly Aa is a fire festival and procession held annually in the Shetland Islands in the middle of winter to mark the end of the Yule season.
Dating back to 1876, the fire festival as we recognize it today was created in response to a much earlier yuletide tradition where squads of young men in the Shetland town of Lerwick would drag burning barrels of tar through the streets.
Discover why this is one of the biggest events in the north of Scotland with this complete visitor guide.
