Muckle Flugga () is a small rocky island north of

Unst Unst (; sco, Unst; nrn, Ønst) is one of the North Isles of the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It is the northernmost of the inhabited British Isles and is the third-largest island in Shetland after Mainland and Yell. It has an area of . Unst ...

in the

Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...

, Scotland. It is often described as the northernmost point of the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...

, but the smaller

islet An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanen ...

Out Stack Out Stack or Ootsta is an island in Shetland, Scotland and the northernmost point of both Scotland and the British Isles. It lies northeast of Muckle Flugga and north of the island of Unst. It is one of the North Isles of the Shetland Islan ...

is actually further north. It used to be the northernmost inhabited island, but forfeited that accolade to

when Muckle Flugga Lighthouse was automated in 1995 and the last residents moved out. The name comes from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

, ', meaning "large steep-sided island". It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names. According to local

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

, Muckle Flugga and nearby Out Stack were formed when two

giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...

, Herman and Saxa, fell in love with the same

mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes asso ...

. They fought over her by throwing large rocks at each other, one of which became Muckle Flugga. To get rid of them, the mermaid offered to marry whichever one would follow her to the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Ma ...

. They both followed her and drowned, as neither could swim.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Uninhabited islands of Shetland