The day after the dinosaurs, Peel provided the counterweight: Oie Voaldyn, the Manx May fire festival, and one of the finest things the Island’s cultural revival has produced. The festival reimagines the old custom of May Day Eve, when fire was used to cast off the darkness and welcome the return of summer and fertility to the land, and it has grown from a local gathering into an event drawing thousands to the western city.
The shape of the thing is wonderful. Two parades, one embodying Winter and one Summer, converge on Peel beach, where their champions meet in combat with the season itself at stake. Summer wins, as Summer must, and the fires, drummers, and dancers carry the celebration on with the castle and the darkening bay as a backdrop. A fire lit on Peel Hill signals the torchlight processions in, and the fire performers take it from there. There is something genuinely ancient in watching flame against the sea as the light goes, and Peel, with its sandstone and its silhouettes, is the perfect stage for it.
This year carried an extra flourish: around fifty members of the Lerwick Jarl Squad, the fully costumed Vikings of Shetland’s famous Up Helly Aa, crossed the water to join the festivities and help light the fires, a meeting of two Viking islands that felt entirely right. Between Manx folklore, Shetland longship pageantry, and a beach full of fire, the old Norse threads of both islands were on full display.
Only on the Isle of Man can you watch a tyrannosaurus lose a foot race and a Viking-attended blaze in the same weekend. I would not have it any other way.
Charlton Krentz 