The Horse of Copinsay, also known as the Horse, is a rectangular sea stack to the north east of Copinsay

Copinsay

'Copinsay is one of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, lying off the east coast of the Orkney Mainland. The smaller companion island to Copinsay is called the Horse of Copinsay and lies to the north east to the main island. The island is now uninhabited and managed as a bird reserve...

 in the Orkney Islands

Orkney Islands

Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...

.

Name

The Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

 were fond of zoomorphising smaller islands - for example, smaller islands lying off a larger one are often termed "Calf", e.g. Calf of Flotta

Calf of Flotta

The Calf of Flotta is a small island in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The Calf is next to Flotta, with "Calf" deriving from Old Norse/Norn and meaning a smaller island by a larger one.-Geography and geology:The Calf is made of red sandstone....

, Calf of Man

Calf of Man

Calf of Man, sometimes known as the Calf of Mann , is a island , off the southwest coast of the Isle of Man. It is separated from the Isle of Man by a narrow stretch of water called the Calf Sound. Like the nearby rocky islets of Chicken Rock and Kitterland, it is part of the parish of Rushen. It...

 or even Calf of Cava (the latter a tautology

Tautology (rhetoric)

Tautology is an unnecessary or unessential repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing...

). Some are even "hens", like the Hen of Gairsay. However "horses" are fairly rare. Coincidentally, the old name of Mainland, Orkney meant "horse island".

Geography and geology

Like most of the other islands of Orkney, the bedrock is Middle Old red sandstone

Old Red Sandstone

The Old Red Sandstone is a British rock formation of considerable importance to early paleontology. For convenience the short version of the term, 'ORS' is often used in literature on the subject.-Sedimentology:...

 of Rousay

Rousay

Rousay is a small, hilly island about north of Orkney's Mainland, off the north coast of Scotland, and has been nicknamed "the Egypt of the north", due to its tremendous archaeological diversity and importance....

 type of the Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

 period, but much eroded and tilted.

The islet is separated from Copinsay by Horse Sound, and to the south west is Corn Holm

Corn Holm

Corn Holm is a small tidal island in Orkney, near Copinsay to the west. There was once a small chapel here , and it is covered in birdlife.- Geography and geology :Corn Holm is made up of red sandstone....

. Mainland Orkney is due west, and Auskerry

Auskerry

Auskerry is a small island in eastern Orkney, Scotland. It lies in the North Sea south of Stronsay and has a lighthouse, completed in 1866.-Description:...

 and Stronsay

Stronsay

Stronsay is an island in Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. The main village is Whitehall, home to a heritage centre. It is in size, and at its highest point....

 are much further to the north. The Horse is the easternmost of the southern Orkney islands.

The Blaster Hole is a sea jet

Blowhole (geology)

In geology, a blowhole is formed as sea caves grow landwards and upwards into vertical shafts and expose themselves towards the surface, which can result in blasts of water from the top of the blowhole if the geometry of the cave and blowhole and state of the weather are appropriate.A blowhole is...

, of the type known in the Northern Isles

Northern Isles

The Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...

 as a gloup

Gloup

Note: Gloup is common in Scottish placenames referring to a sea jet.Gloup is a village in the far north of the island of Yell in the Shetland Islands. It lends its name to nearby island of Gloup Holm....

. When a storm blows in from the east, the aptly named Blaster Hole can produce a spout of nearly 60 metres (196.9 ft) highly, solely by wave power.

Use

The tiny islet was used for grazing, and appears never to have been inhabited (although a number of the smaller islands were often used by culdee

Culdee

Céli Dé or Culdees were originally members of ascetic Christian monastic and eremitical communities of Ireland, Scotland and England in the Middle Ages. The term is used of St. John the Apostle, of a missioner from abroad recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 806, and of Óengus...

 anchorite

Anchorite

Anchorite denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life...

s). Pigs and sheep were grazed here, but not horses as the name might suggest. As Haswell-Smith says:

"As with many small islands, the demand for grazing was so great that the islanders [of Copinsay] would carry sheep to the top of the Horse, but it was said that it could fatten one sheep, and feed two, but three would starve. In the Spring, pigs were also hoisted up to fatten on the huge 'crop' of sea-birds' eggs. The pigs' coarse hair was used to make the strong rope needed for fowling. 'Lee-running' was the local name for the organised collection of sea-birds' eggs, which was still practised on Copinsay in the 1940s."