Foula (/ˈfuːlə/),[7] located in the Shetland archipelago of Scotland, is one of the United Kingdom's most remote permanently inhabited islands.

Foula lies in the Atlantic Ocean, 15 nautical miles (28 kilometres) west of Walls on Mainland, Shetland.

[10] 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.

[8] The island has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports large colonies of cliff- and moorland-nesting seabirds.

A further investigation launched in 2007 revealed that the sub-circular stone construction was man-made, elliptical in shape with its long axis pointing towards the mid-winter solstice, built before 1000 BC.

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'.

[23] 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.

[8] In 1774 George Low, a young Scottish clergyman, visited Foula hoping to find remnants of oral literature in Norn, then nearing extinction.

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.

[29][30] He described the disaster of 8 September 1914, when the armed merchant cruiser HMS Oceanic, formerly a White Star liner, wrecked on the Shaalds o' Foula.

The most able islanders become known as the 'cutters' and, in the spirit of a long-standing Foula tradition, all able-bodied men are now and then "bid to the banks" of women who "didn't have a cutter in the house".

[31] Simon Martin, who stayed in Foula for five years in the 1970s while salvaging metal from Oceanic, describes the island as follows:[32] Foula, or Ultima Thule, as it was known as far back as the Roman times, rises impurely out of the water, and from the Shetland Isles mainland its five peaks, the Noup, Hamnafield, the Sneug, Kame and Soberlie stand out starkly and characteristically.

Foula, or Fughley as it was once also known, means literally 'Bird Island', with an estimated half million birds of various breeds sharing the rock with the inhabitants.

[40] 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.