One o'clock on Yule morning having struck, the young men
turn out in large numbers, dressed in the coarsest of garments, and, at
the double-quick march, drag huge tar barrels through the town, shouting
and cheering as they go, or blowing loud blasts with their 'louder
horns.' The tar barrel simply consists of several--say from four to
eight--tubs filled with tar and chips, placed on a platform of wood. It
is dragged by means of a chain, to which scores of jubilant youths
readily yoke themselves. They have recently been described by the worthy
burgh officer of Lerwick as 'fiery chariots, the effect of which is
truly grand and terrific.' In a Christmas morning the dark streets of
Lerwick are generally lighted up by the bright glare, and its atmosphere
blackened by the dense smoke of six or eight tar barrels in succession.
On the appearance of daybreak, at six A.M., the morning revellers put
off their coarse garments--well begrimed by this time--and in their turn
become guizards. They assume every imaginable form of costume--those of
soldiers, sailors, Highlanders, Spanish chevaliers, etc. Thus disguised,
they either go in pairs, as man and wife, or in larger groups, and
proceed to call on their friends, to wish them the compliments of the
season. Formerly, these adolescent guizards used to seat themselves in
crates, and accompanied by fiddlers, were dragged through the
town."[686]
[Persian festival of fire at the winter solstice.
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