Climbing down a ragged Galloway cliff face with the cold sea water crashing all around and the risk of tumbling onto the rocks below would seem a dangerous outing for a sickly child.
But at the edge of a natural basin, with the spirit of Saint Medana in the air and the hopes of worried parents resting on the magical properties of the salt water, in would go the unfortunate youngster – head first.
It was a time when water, whether bubbling up from springs in the ground, forming in rocky pools, in rocky basins on cliff faces or even settled in a crevice in tree, provoked superstition, legend and everything from fear of the devil to blind faith in saintly intervention.