FLANNAN-ISLES, a group of seven islands, in the
parish of Lewis, county of Inverness. They lie seventeen
miles north-west of Gallan Head in Lewis, and are
supposed to be the Insula Sacrce of ancient writers, and,
from the number of Druidical remains still found upon
them, to have been the residence of the Druids. The
largest islet has an area of about eighty acres, the second
in size perhaps twenty acres, and both are noted for
fattening sheep; the rest are of much smaller dimensions,
and altogether unoccupied. Various kinds of seafowl
resort hither; and when, on the arrival of a boat,
they come out of their holes, they are described as covering
the surface of the islands, and giving them " the
appearance of a meadow thickly enamelled with fieldflowers".
Though this group is much dreaded by mariners,
it would seem that the danger of approach is not
great.