The Maiden Stack or Frau Stack is a tiny stack in the western Shetland Islands

Shetland Islands

Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...

 to the north of Brei Holm

Brei Holm

Brei Holm is a tiny tidal islet in the western Shetland Islands. It is due east of Papa Stour, to which it is connected at low tide, just outside Housa Voe...

 and east of Housa Voe in Papa Stour

Papa Stour

Papa Stour is one of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, with a population of under twenty people, some of whom immigrated after an appeal for residents in the 1970s. Located to the west of mainland Shetland and with an area of 828 hectares , Papa Stour is the eighth largest island in Shetland...

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It is so called because of the tiny house at its top. It is said to have been built in the 14th century by Lord Þorvald Þoresson, in order to "preserve" his daughter from men. Unfortunately, when she left, she was found to be pregnant, and probably no longer a virgin.

There are various versions of the story. Another is recorded by Hibbert:

One of these insulated rocks, named Frau-a-stack or the Lady’s Stack - accessible to none but the best of climbers - is crowned on the summit by the remains of a small building, that was originally built by a Norwegian Lady, to preserve herself from the solicitations of suitors, when she had entered into a vow of pure celibacy. The ascent to the house was considered almost unsurmountable, except by the help of ropes. But a dauntless lover, an udaller from Islesburgh, contrived in the dark secrecy of evening to scale the stack, and, after the first surprise was overcome, so far ingratiated himself in the fair devotee’s affections that, in a fatal hour she was induced:

To trust the opportunity of night

And the ill counsel of a desert place

With the rich worth of her virginity.

When the consequence of the Lady’s faux pas could no longer be concealed, Frau-a-stack became the scoff of the island, and was deserted by its fair and frail tenant. The house was soon afterwards unroofed and reduced to ruin, in contempt of the vow of chastity that had been broken’

In a third version of the story, the lady was incarcerated by her father because of her interest in a common fisherman. Eventually she and her sweetheart successfully eloped.