Freya goes up in flames in Uyeasound
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THEY do things differently on Unst – and Friday’s Uyeasound Up Helly Aa was no different.
Dispensing with the usual Norse pseudonym, Guizer Jarl Richard Mouat adopted the name of an English monarch…but, of course, he had his reasons.
“Last year’s jarl was Richard Spence and he was the first Richard to be jarl, so for the past year everyone has called me Richard the Second. I thought there was no point in looking for another name, so I stuck with it,” he said.
His galley kept up the Norse tradition though, named after the fertility goddess Freya – a name shared by one of the 34 year old’s bairns.
The 23 squad members, including Mouat’s four children Maisie (11), Archie (10), Freya (7) and Katherine (3), cut an impressive sight in their silver and black regalia with imitation fur boots and goose-winged helmets.
The jarl himself stood out in gold and black with a round patterned shield, while the rest of his squad had shields shaped like dart flights, to mark his own passion for the sport, and bearing a map of the island where he lives.
Up Helly Aa is a big event on Unst and draws folk back home from afar, including squad member Neil Smith this year, who travelled from the other side of the world where he works milking New Zealand kye.
Freya (the galley) went up in flames on Friday night when the 170 guizers from 16 squads hurled in their torches after proceeding through the village.
But it was the beautifully-built Uyeasound galley of yore – which never gets burned – that paraded through the island during the day, visiting the school and the old folks home at Nordalea as it wended its way through the southern half of Unst.
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Each Up Helly Aa sees a minor improvement to this galley, but this year it was a close shave.
The plan was to install a handbrake on the undercarriage to ease the load on Viking shoulders that have always had to be used to stop the galley from rolling away down hills, such as the one by the Baltasound school.
“The two boys putting the handbrake on had all the parts but they didn’t get it finished until about four in the morning before we set off,” the jarl said.
Improving and recycling is a big part of Unst culture, not least for the jarl who works for the amenity trust’s muck and bruck squad when he’s not working his croft or keeping up his fire training.
“We try and recycle a lot on Unst, it’s not new everything every year, it’s too expensive and folk can’t afford it,” he said.
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