Heaste  Heasta, Heast, or the anglicised form Heaste, pron. /heɪst/, is a small settlement on the island of Skye, Scotland. It is located on the west coast of the island five miles south of Broadford extending down to the north shore of Loch Eiseort, facing out to the Atlantic to the south west and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. The etymology of the name Heaste is unclear. It is likely that the name is old Norse as are a great many local placenames, not Scottish Gaelic. The anglicised "Heaste" spelling may have been influenced by the English word ‘haste’. Suggested etymologies have included: one been based on a suggestion relating to the tidal island of Eilean Heast which lies just off-shore in the sea-loch Loch Eiseort. This has been compared to Icelandic "hestur" (nom.sg.) "hest" (acc.sg.) ‘’horse’’ ( - perhaps an island where horses were confined. Another suggestion is based on ON "há-" ‘high’ or else "heiðr" ‘heather’ + "staðr" ‘stead(ing)’ which therefore would equate to either ‘high stead(ing)’ or ‘heath stead(ing)’ and which describes well the location of the old village which also extended onto higher heather moorland, above the present day extent of the modern houses. Many Norse-based placenames of the Hebrides, the Highlands, Orkney and Shetland terminate in the element "-sta" sometime clipped to -st (in either spelling only or in spelling and in pronunciation to some degree). Examples are Carbost in Skye (clipped in anglicised spelling) and Garrabost in Lewis, but many retain the final schwa and may or may not retain the unclipped -{sta} spelling. This suggests an analysis as two words is warranted in contrast to the first of the above suggested etymologies. Heaste lies on the northern shore of the Atlantic sea-loch Loch Eiseort On the west coast of Skye. The tidal island of Eilean Heast which lies just off-shore in Loch Eiseort, Eilean Heast can be reached at low tide with great difficulty as the access is extremely muddy.