In spite of an impending thunderstorm, hundreds of heavily disguised torchbearers gathered on a remote Scottish island to celebrate an old Viking fire festival.
They marched through the town of Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, holding aloft burning torches.
The procession culminated in the burning of a Viking-style galley.
People come from all over the world to witness the spectacle, which originated in the 1880s to mark the end of the Yule season (the pre-reformist calendar that coincided with the Catholic one) and celebrate the Viking heritage in Scotland.
The building of the galley and making of more than 1000 torches are all done by volunteers.
