a small island situated on the coast of England, ten miles south-east of Berwick, in Northumberland. Bede calls it a semi-island, being, as he observes, twice island and twice continent in one day; for at the flowing of the tide it is encompassed by water, and at the ebb there is a passage almost dry both for horses and carriages to and from the mainland, from which, if measured on a straight line, it is distant about two miles eastward, though, on account of some quicksands, passengers are obliged to make so many detours, that the length of the way is nearly doubled. The water over these flats is at spring-tides only seven feet deep. This island was called by the Britons Inis Medicante, and also Landisfarne, from the small rivulet of Lindi or Landia, which here runs into the sea, and the Celtic word fahren, or recess; but, on account of its being the habitation of some of the first monks in this country, it afterwards obtained its present name of Holy Island. It measures from east to west about two miles and a quarter, but its breadth from north to south is scarcely a mile and a half. Holy Island, though really part of Northumberland, belongs to Durham; and all civil disputes must be determined by the justices of that county.