John T. Reid's 1869 account of Foula, quoted in the 1903 collection, says that a few old men tell of a wondrous journey they once made over to the mainland. On it they were surrounded by a legion of strange beings, a host of monsters, who rose out of the sea and threatened to devour them. The old men still grow pale and become unnerved when they tell of this hideous array, which they describe as containing every animal, created and uncreated, with horrible combinations of bird and beast and fish and human.
It is a second-hand report of a story told by a few men and gives no date. It fits the Shetland tradition of sea trows, which Hibbert describes as great rolling creatures that tumbled in the water and tore fishermen's nets, and from which fishermen blamed odd sights at sea. It may record a dream or a delirium on a bad crossing.
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