Lítla Dímun is a small, uninhabited island between the islands of Suðuroy and Stóra Dímun in the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

. It is the smallest of the main 18 islands, being less than a square kilometre (247 acres) in area, and is the only uninhabited one. The island can be seen from the villages of

Hvalba Hvalba ( da, Kvalbø) is a village and a municipality in the Faroe Islands, which consists of Hvalba, Nes-Hvalba and Sandvík. The village spreads around the bottom of a deep inlet, Hvalbiarfjørður, in the northeast of Suðuroy. Population Hv ...

and Sandvík.

Etymology

The name means "Little Dímun", in contrast to ''Stóra Dímun'', "Great Dímun". According to Fridtjof Nansen, ''Dímun'' may represent a pre-Norse, Celtic

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

ic element meaning "double-neck". Stora and Litla Dímun shows a pairing of two distinctive but separate localities in one name. Gammeltoft concluded Dímun is a Scandinavian place name for a double-peaked feature of a particular appearance, reflecting a linguistic contact between Scandinavians and Gaels.

Description

The lowest third of the island is sheer cliff, with the rest rising to the mountain of Slættirnir, which reaches . The island is only inhabited by

Faroe sheep The Faroese sheep ( fo, Føroyskur seyður) is a breed of sheep native to the Faroe Islands. First introduced in the 9th century, Faroese sheep have long been an integral part of the island traditions: The name ''"''Faroe Islands" has been argue ...

and

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s. Getting ashore is difficult, and can be performed only in perfect weather. The cliffs can be climbed with the aid of ropes placed by the owners of the sheep.

Important Bird Area

The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because of its significance as a breeding site for

s, especially

European storm petrel The European storm petrel, British storm petrel, or just storm petrel (''Hydrobates pelagicus'') is a seabird in the northern storm petrel family, Hydrobatidae. The small, square-tailed bird is entirely black except for a broad, white rump and ...

s (5000 pairs) and Atlantic puffins (10,000 pairs). There are no land animals beside sheep.

History

The island has never been inhabited by humans, but sheep were kept there from ancient times, being mentioned in the 13th-century work the ''

Færeyinga Saga The Færeyinga saga (), the saga of the Faroe Islands, is the story of how the Faroe Islanders were converted to Christianity and became a part of Norway. Summary It was written in Iceland shortly after 1200. The author is unknown and the original ...

'' (Saga of the Faroese). The saga also features the island as the site of a battle between Brestur, father of Sigmundur, and Gøtuskeggjar. The battle resulted in the death of Sigmund's father and his men and the deportation of Sigmund to Norway, where he befriended Olaf Tryggvasson, the King of Norway from 995 to 1000. The island used to be property of the Danish King, but it was difficult to get anyone to settle the island as it is very steep and hard to land at, and it was thus decided to sell it; it was mostly men from

who had used and rented the island until then. The auction was held in Hvalba on 24 July 1852, and the final bid was 4,820 Rigsdaler or 9,640 Dkk, quite a sum for the time. Men from Hvalba and Sandvík together outbid the

Factor Factor, a Latin word meaning "who/which acts", may refer to: Commerce * Factor (agent), a person who acts for, notably a mercantile and colonial agent * Factor (Scotland), a person or firm managing a Scottish estate * Factors of production, suc ...

for the royal sales-station in Tvøroyri, who kept pushing the price up. The island was then given to the men from Hvalba and Sandvík as Copyhold inheritance, against 40 Dkk in copyhold rent, and 10 Dkk every time there was a new owner. This money was in 1911 released with 1,000 Dkk, and thus did Lítla Dímun become the only privately owned island in the Faroes.

Shipwreck

In 1918, the Danish schooner ''Caspe'', carrying a cargo of salt, was driven onto Lítla Dímun by a gale. The six crew were able to reach a narrow ledge just above the surf, but they had no stores, and the captain was severely injured. Eventually, they managed to move from the ledge, and found a cabin halfway up the island which had matches, fuel and a lamp. They caught two sheep and a sick bird, and were able to survive for seventeen days before being discovered and rescued by a fishing boat. One of the shipwrecked sailors eventually settled in the Faroes.

Sheep

The sheep now living on the island are Faroes sheep, but until the mid-nineteenth century it was occupied by

feral A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...

sheep, probably derived from the earliest

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...

brought to Northern Europe in the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

Period. The last of these very small, black, short-wooled sheep were shot in the 1860s. They were similar in appearance and origin to the surviving Soay sheep, from the island of Soay in the St Kilda archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. Soay is an island of very similar size and topography to Lítla Dímun, and has similarly difficult access. The modern Faroes sheep of the island are gathered each autumn. People sail to the island in a fishing boat, towing several rowing

skiff A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for leisure, as a utility craft, and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have deve ...

s. About 40 people then form a chain across the island, driving the 200 or so sheep into a pen on the north side of the island. The sheep are then caught, restrained by tying their feet together, put in nets five at a time and lowered by ropes to the skiffs. Each skiff then takes its load of 15 sheep to the fishing boat, which returns to the island of Suðuroy. The sheep are unloaded on the wharf in the village of

, where they are placed in rows and distributed to their owners. A few sheep escape the gathering, and from time to time these are shot.

In popular culture

In Pierdomenico Baccalario's book trilogy Cyboria, New City, a futuristic utopic city, is located in this island and covered by clouds on top to not to be seen in the air.

Photos

File:Litla dimun map.jpg, Map of Lítla Dímun. File:Litla-dimun-photo.jpg, Clouds often cover the island. File:Little Dímun sheep.jpg, Museum specimens of the extinct feral sheep of Lítla Dímun.

References

Secondary sources

External links

Website
of Lítla Dímun (aerial photos) {{DEFAULTSORT:Litla Dimun Uninhabited islands of the Faroe Islands Important Bird Areas of the Faroe Islands Private islands of Denmark