On the last Tuesday of January, up to a thousand torch-bearing guizers in Viking costume march through Lerwick, Shetland, encircle a hand-built replica longship, and burn it to the ground while singing The Norseman's Home. This episode explains the machinery behind Up Helly Aa: the single-seat annual election to the committee, the 15-year wait to become Guizer Jarl, the handcrafted torches of hessian, paraffin, and tar, the galley built from scratch every year, and the all-night hall performances that follow across schools and community centers.

Then it reveals the surprising origins. The name simply means the Yule holidays are all at an end. The real predecessor was tar barreling, in which bored young men back from the Napoleonic Wars dragged flaming barrels through town, until the danger and drunkenness led authorities to ban it in the la ...