Up Helly Aa: Woman takes on Guizer Jarl role on Scottish island for first time
A Shetland isle will celebrate a woman taking on the hallowed role of the Guizer Jarl for the first time.
Alice Jamieson, 35, will lead the Cullivoe Up Helly Aa on Yell next month - and will shave her head just as all jarls have done before her.
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Ms Jamieson was appointed as the Guizer Jarl - a most noble warrior in Norse mythology - after being asked by her predecessor to take the honour on the island - the second largest in Shetland.
She said: “It does feel important to be the first female Guizer Jarl in Cullivoe and I am so proud now there are really young lasses speaking about not if they can be jarl, but when they can be jarl. That change in language is amazing.”
Ms Jamieson added: “It is important that it is absolutely possible for anybody to do this, but I also love this festival, just as has every jarl before me. I want to celebrate the fact that I am the first female jarl. But the festival will go ahead just as it always has and that is important to me too.”
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Hide AdMs Jamieson, 35, a health visitor who has also served as a nurse with the Royal Navy, including a deployment in Afghanistan, has confirmed she will shave her head on Up Helly Aa weekend along with other members of her Jarl Squad, who accompany her closely on the day.
She said: “There has been a lot of ‘is she going to do it, is she not going to do it?’ But I am going to do it. That is the tradition, that the Jarl gets their head shaved and I wasn’t going to back out of that.”
The head shave will raise money for the MS Society and the Meningitis Research Foundation, with her locks being donated to the Little Princess Trust.
Lesley Simpson became Shetland’s first ever adult female Guizer Jarl at the South Mainland Up Helly Aa in 2015.
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Hide AdWomen were allowed into the main torchlit procession at the Lerwick event for the first time last year, with a campaign running for the change since the 1980s.


Ms Jamieson said it was a “huge honour” to take on the role for her community. Her father, Robert, was the Guizer Jarl in 1981 and will travel in the galley boat, with his daughter and her mother, Julie, and son, Henry, six.
Ms Jamieson said: “It is such an honour and it is a festival that I love, I have always come home for it, I have always been involved in it. There are moments of pressure where you are thinking to yourself ‘I want to get this right’. You want to get it right for your community, for your squad and for yourself.
On the highlight of the event, she added: “I think every jarl from every festival would say it is that point you are in the galley and it is being pulled down to the point where it is burned and all the guizers are behind you with the torches. It is such an emotional, special moment.”
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Hide AdMs Jamieson described the moment of the burning as “bittersweet”.
“All this work has gone into building this beautiful galley boat, all the deliberation about the colours and everything that goes on it, and then we burn it,” she said. “Obviously, we are symbolising that we are sending it to Valhalla.”
Details of Ms Jamieson’s outfit will remain top secret until the Cullivoe Up Helly Aa begins, although she said her military background has influenced some of the design.
She will tour Yell with her Jarl Squad over the Friday and Saturday, visiting halls and schools and the elderly unable to leave their homes.
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