Becoming Guizer Jarl allows the chief to assemble their own Viking group, locally known as “Jarl Squad”.
It then gets to march at the head of the fiery procession on the last Tuesday in January every year.
To earn the honour, they have to be elected to the Up Helly Aa Committee, a body of volunteers which organises and runs the festival, and serve on it for 16 years.
Lynden had to wait two extra years for his turn because some of the past events had been cancelled during the Coronavirus pandemic.
This is the longest wait in the festival’s 145-year-old history, and, incidentally, the father-of-two is also the oldest serving Guizer Jarl ever.
“Eighteen years is a long time for me, my family and my wife Paula, who has been brilliant through this,” he said.
“The boys were children when I started and they are grown men leading my rank – that puts a perspective on how long it has been.”
