St Andrews students take the plunge with traditional May Dip

Hundreds of University of St Andrews students took the plunge with a traditional May Day dip in the North Sea.

The May Dip sees students gather at dawn on the East Sands before running into the chilly waters, and is intended to bring good luck to them in their exams and cleanse any academic sins.

It is also considered to be the only cure for the legendary curse of Patrick Hamilton, a church reformer who was executed in the Fife town in 1528, which is believed to cause students to fail their exams.

The dip was preceded the evening before by the annual Gaudie, a torchlit procession and pier walk in St Andrews, which this year had to take a different route due to storm damage on the main pier.

The Gaudie takes place on April 30 to commemorate John Honey, who as a St Andrews student in 1800 rescued members of the crew of the Janet of Macduff which had run aground off the East Sands.

Every year students walk by candlelight, led by a piper, to the East Sands, where they lay a wreath at the site of the shipwreck.