Samuel Hibbert, who toured Shetland in 1817 and published in 1822, describes the summit of Liorafield on Foula as having a small hole into which several barrels of lines are said to have been let down without finding the bottom. It was covered with a flag. He records an ancient superstition that whoever, on his first time on the island, opened the Liora, the vent that leads to the underground home of the trows, would die immediately afterwards.
He took the flag off regardless. Leaving by a large boat bound for Vailey, he thought that having offended the demon of Liorafield his passage would be perilous if not fatal, and then the wind rose, the water swelled, the heavily laden boat shipped much water and the mainsail gave way. After eight hours, not without danger, they reached port.
Hibbert tells it with some irony. It is a documented visitor's account of a local taboo, not a report of a haunting. The summit is not pinned exactly.
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