Muckle Flugga

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Small Shetland island

title: "Muckle Flugga" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["uninhabited-islands-of-shetland"] description: "Small Shetland island" topic_path: "general/uninhabited-islands-of-shetland" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckle_Flugga" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Small Shetland island ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Muckle_Fulga_Sunny.jpg" caption="[[Muckle Flugga Lighthouse"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Lighthouse_Muckle_Flugga.1.jpg" caption="Muckle Flugga"] ::

Muckle Flugga () is a small rocky island north of Unst in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It is the most northerly hill in Scotland and is often described as the northernmost point of the British Isles, but the smaller islet of Out Stack is actually further north. It used to be the northernmost inhabited island, but forfeited that accolade to Unst when Muckle Flugga Lighthouse was automated in 1995 and the last residents moved out.

Muckle Flugga and neighbouring Little Flugga take their names from the Old Norse Flugey, meaning "cliff island". The larger island's name has frequently appeared on lists of unusual place-names.

According to local folklore, Muckle Flugga and nearby Out Stack were formed when two giants, Herman and Saxa, fell in love with the same mermaid. 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. They both followed her and drowned, as neither could swim.

References

References

  1. "Northern Lighthouse Board".
  2. Mills, A. D.. (2011). "A Dictionary of British Place Names". Oxford University Press.
  3. Parker, Quentin. (2010). "Welcome to Horneytown, North Carolina, Population: 15: An insider's guide to 201 of the world's weirdest and wildest places". Adams Media.
  4. McNeil, Robert. (2023-05-21). "The legend of Muckle Flugga - and its lighthouse that’s like no other …".
  5. "Visit Hermaness National Nature Reserve, 2019 p. 2".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

uninhabited-islands-of-shetland