The huge number of modern day pilgrims who descended on Dunfermline on Sunday has left a leading church figure gobsmacked.
More than 1,000 people took part in the re-established summer St Margaret’s pilgrimage, which ended in Holy Mass.
The pilgrims were led through the streets by a local pipe band, followed by Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews and Edinburgh who carried aloft the relics of the nation’s patroness.
“I was really gobsmacked by the turnout,” he said.
“Beforehand, I was hoping that we’d have enough pilgrims to comfortably fill the church so I could not believe it as I stood in the town’s Pittencrieff Park and could see pilgrims all the way up the High Street and beyond to honour St Margaret by their presence.
“It was very moving and I was thrilled, absolutely delighted.”
Father Chris Heenan, the parish priest of St Margaret’s Church in Dunfermline and co-ordinator of the pilgrimage, added: “I’m overwhelmed by the number of people who honoured St Margaret.
“We thought it would be busy but it’s surpassed what we’d hoped for.
“It’s just incredible to see so many people here to honour St Margaret’s memory and to ask for her intercession.”
The roots of the pilgrimage date back to June 1250 when the saint’s relics were transferred to a new shrine in Dunfermline Abbey following her canonisation by Pope Innocent IV.
An annual summer pilgrimage continued to the late 16th Century.
It was then revived in 1899 and continued to 1974.