Brand, in his Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth and Caithness (1701, second edition 1703), tells that about two and a half or three years before, a boat with several gentlemen of the country was passing through the Voe of Quarff when something appeared with its head above the water. They saw it had the face of an old man with a long beard hanging down. It showed first at some distance, then came nearer, so they had a clear view. The sight was so strange and frightening that everyone in the boat wanted to get ashore, though the day was fair and the sea calm. One gentleman said he had never seen the like in all his travels through many seas, as a minister who was in the company told Brand.
The date is about 1697 to 1698. It is a second-hand account from a minister, in a book on islands full of such reports, and no one is named. Brand gives a second story of a mermaid caught on a hook near Burra in the same pages.
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