Шетланд аралдарындағы Фоула аралы

Island of the Shetland Islands, Scotland

Foula ('/f//uː//l//ə/), located in the Shetland archipelago of Scotland, is one of the United Kingdom's most remote permanently inhabited islands. Owned since the turn of the 20th century by the Holbourn family, the island was the location for the film The Edge of the World (1937). The liner RMS Oceanic was wrecked on the nearby Shaalds of Foula in 1914. The island has a post office.

The name "Foula" derives from the Old Norse Fugley, meaning "bird island"; compare Fugloy, an island in the Faroes.

Foula lies in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Walls in Shetland. It was part of Walls civil parish. The island is about , with a low lying coastal strip along the east side. With an area of , it is the seventh largest and most westerly of the Shetland Islands. It rises from low broken cliffs in the east to precipitous cliffs in the west. At the north end is Gaada Stack, a natural arch and towards the south west is Da Sneck Ida Smaalie, a spectacular 30 m deep and 2 m wide crack in the cliffs. Foula lies on the same latitude as Saint Petersburg. Foula has a population of 38 people, living in Hametun and Ham. Today, most islanders are crofters with income from sheep farming and birdwatching tourism.

BK Marine Limited operates the ferry service from Ham to Walls on the Shetland mainland. New Advance carries up to 12 passengers and completes the voyage in about two hours. Flights take off from Foula Airfield to Tingwall Airport. A ferry service ran from Foula to Scalloway until 2010. There is little shelter for boats in the island. The only beach is at the head of Ham Voe on the east coast. Local boats, including the mail boat, are hauled out of the water. Between 2006 and 2008, the Bath & Camerton Archeological Society took several trips to Foula to study prehistoric standing stones. A particular sub circular stone circle of interest was discovered in 2006 at Da Heights in the north of Foula. A further investigation launched in 2007 revealed that the sub circular stone construction was man made, elliptical in shape with the axis pointing towards the mid winter solstice, built before 1000 BC.

In 1490, the Ciske family's estates were divided and Vaila and Foula became the property of Alv Knutsson. However, the Ciskes were Norwegian, and as Scotland had annexed Shetland a few decades before, there were confusing and conflicting claims of ownership. Foula remained on the Julian calendar when the rest of the Kingdom of Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The writer and journalist John Sands lived on Foula and Papa Stour for a while during the late 19th century. He fought hard against the prevailing truck system and drew political cartoons lampooning its deficiencies. In one, he drew Foula as a beautiful young woman being strangled by a boa constrictor labelled 'landlordism' watched by other reptiles called 'missionary', 'laird' and 'truck'. The island was one of the last places where the Norn language was spoken (although it is claimed that Walter Sutherland of Skaw in Unst was the last speaker), and the local dialect is strongly influenced by Old Norse. He found fragments of songs, ballads and romances, and from his best source, an old farmer called William Henry, the ballad now known as "Hildina". Henry was quite poorly acquainted with the language, so that, although he had as a child memorised all 35 stanzas of the ballad in the original Norn, he could give Low only a summary of its content rather than a translation. "Hildina" is the only extant poem in Norn.

Many inhabitants of Foula attend a Presbyterian parish known as Foula Kirk or Baxter Chapel that is part of the Church of Scotland.

Michael Powell's film The Edge of the World (1937) is a dramatisation based on the true story of the evacuation of the last 36 inhabitants of the remote island of St Kilda, on 29 August 1930. St Kilda lies in the Atlantic Ocean, west northwest of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides; the inhabitants spoke Gaelic. Powell was unable to get permission to film in St Kilda. Undaunted, he made the film over four months during the summer of 1936 on Foula, where the islanders speak Shetland dialect. Return To The Edge Of The World (1978) is a documentary capturing a reunion of the 1937 film's cast and crew, 40 years later, as they revisit the island.

Foula's inhabitants preserve many Norse traditions of folklore and festivities. They still follow the Julian calendar for Christmas celebrations, with all the islanders gathering in one house on 6 January though a day out. New Year's Day falls on 13 January.

Vagaland's poem "Da Sang o da Papa men" about the fishermen of Papa Stour includes an insistent chorus chant, "Rowin Foula Doon". This refers to the fishermen's practice of rowing their open fishing boat out to sea until the high cliffs of Foula were no longer visible. This entailed the boat's being some west of Papa Stour.

The Sneug in Foula was the origin (meridian) of the 6 inch and 1:2500 Ordnance Survey maps of Orkney and Shetland.

Martin Ferguson Smith (b. 1940), scholar and writer. Since retiring in 1995 he has lived in voluntary self isolation on Foula. Ian Holbourn, (1872 – 1935), was Laird of Foula, a professor and lecturer at the University of Oxford, and a writer. Sheila Gear, author of Foula, Island West of the Sun (published 1983 by Robert Hale Limited). She was born in Oxford and studied zoology at Aberdeen University. She married Jim Gear, a crofter, and wrote a book about crofter life in Shetland. John Sands (1826–1900) of Ormiston was a Scottish freelance journalist and artist who also had an interest in archaeology and folk customs. He spent almost a year on St Kilda and lived on several other remote islands including Foula.