Sweyn Holm is a small island in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...

, next to

Gairsay Gairsay (Old Norse: ''Gáreksey'') is a small island in Orkney, Scotland, located in the parish of Rendall, off the coast, astride one of the approaches to the bays of Firth and Kirkwall. It is about long and wide and includes one conical h ...

. It is thought to be named for

Sweyn Asleifsson Sweyn Asleifsson or Sveinn Ásleifarson ( 1115 – 1171) was a 12th-century Viking who appears in the '' Orkneyinga Saga''. Early career Sweyn was born in Caithness in the early twelfth century, to Olaf Hrolfsson and his wife Åsleik. According t ...

(Sveinn), who was connected with Gairsay or possibly a corruption of "servant's island" in Norse.

Geography and geology

Sweyn Holm is made up of red

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

References

Uninhabited islands of Orkney {{Orkney-geo-stub