Participants of the annual Viking-themed Up Helly Aa festival carried torches and played bagpipes in the town of Lerwick in Scotland’s Shetland Islands on Tuesday, January 30, into early Wednesday.

The fire festival, said to have begun in the 1880s, is celebrated to mark the end of the yule season and to remember Viking heritage, with many participants dressing in traditional Viking garb. The festival culminates with dozens of torches being thrown into a longship. Credit: Kerry McCranor via Storyful