Medieval Booker

Medieval festivals in January 2027

4 medieval festivals, markets and reenactments across Europe in January 2027, in date order, with cities and what each one is known for. Expected dates say so.

January is the quiet month; what fire there is burns on Shetland, after dark. Up Helly Aa fills Lerwick on the last Tuesday of the month: the Jarl Squad marches from breakfast time, and in the evening about a thousand guizers walk a full-size galley through the streets by torchlight and burn it while the crowd sings. Then the squads disappear into private halls until morning, and the town takes the Wednesday off. Shetland in late January is cold, dark and windy, the overnight ferry from Aberdeen takes about twelve hours, and beds are booked many months ahead; if you have not got one, Promote Shetland streams the burning. Use the rest of the month to book July.

Month: January Remove month filter Clear filters

4 festivals, upcoming first

November 2026

  • Tallinn Christmas Market in Tallinn Maasaak · CC BY-SA 4.0
    Medieval Christmas

    Tallinn Christmas Market

    Tallinn, Estonia

    Tallinn's Christmas market fills the Raekoja plats, the Town Hall Square of the Hanseatic old town, around a single spruce from 20 November 2026 to 6 January 2027, daily 10:00–20:00, in what the organisers count as its 25th edition. It is not a medieval-themed market — the traders sell modern Estonian crafts and food in ordinary dress — but the square is, and the city's claim that the Brotherhood of Blackheads raised the first public Christmas tree here in 1441 is why it belongs on this site, with the historians' caveat attached.

    – 2026
    Family
  • Medieval Markets & Fairs Medieval Christmas

    Dresden Medieval Christmas Market in the Stallhof

    Dresden, Germany

    The Mittelalter-Weihnacht im Stallhof fills the 16th-century tournament yard of Dresden's Residenzschloss with more than fifty costumed traders and craftspeople working with late-medieval tools, musicians and a bathhouse from the Wednesday before Advent to 23 December; the 2026 market runs 25 November – 23 December. It reopens as the Dresdner Rauhnächte between Christmas and Epiphany, one of the very few medieval markets in Europe that is open in early January.

    – 2026
    Family

January 2027

  • Viking & Norse Historic City Celebrations

    Scalloway Fire Festival

    Scalloway, Scotland

    Scalloway's Viking fire festival opens Shetland's fire-festival season on the second Friday of January: a Guizer Jarl and a squad of men, women and children in Norse dress lead the torchlit procession through the village to the boating club slipway at Port Arthur, where the galley is set alight and cast adrift on the sea before a fireworks display and a night of hall performances. The next edition is Friday 8 January 2027.

    2027
    Family
  • Up Helly Aa (Lerwick) in Lerwick Mike Pennington · CC BY-SA 2.0
    Featured
    Music, Feasts & Theatre Viking & Norse +1

    Up Helly Aa (Lerwick)

    Lerwick, Scotland

    Up Helly Aa is Lerwick's Viking-themed fire festival, held on the last Tuesday of January: about a thousand torch-bearing guizers led by the Guizer Jarl's squad in Norse dress march through the town and burn a full-size replica longship, then tour a dozen halls performing skits until morning. It grew out of 19th-century tar-barrelling, with the first torch procession in 1881 and the first galley burning in 1889; the next edition is Tuesday 26 January 2027.

    2027
    Family

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