THIS powerful image was the creation of artist Mags Macfarlane. I had told her the story of Thenew (her name was also spelt in other ways) and how she had been cast adrift on a small coracle from the shores of Aberlady when she was heavily pregnant.

It is a famous legend set in post-Roman Celtic times and a version is told in our book East Lothian Folktales, which Mags illustrated.

Thenew’s father was the legendary King Loth, whom, the story goes, ruled from Dunpelder (Traprain Law). Early religious writings tell the story that Thenew was a victim of her father’s cruel vengeance for what he believed to be her disobedience and wrongful behaviour.

One early medieval account by Jocelinus, a monk from Furness, tells us: “By the king’s command, she was led to the top of a very high hill called Dunpelder, that, cast down from thence, she might be broken limb by limb, or dashed to pieces.”

But that didn’t work, so she was instead taken to the shore of Aberlady and put into the small hide vessel, pulled from the shore and set adrift.

Mags’ art captures the terror and desperation of Thenew’s situation, as her tiny boat is taken by the tide out to the open sea. It is rocked by waves and she clings on for life, the freezing water lapping over her.

But thankfully, there is a happy ending to this story. Her small boat begins to drift inland, across the Firth of Forth, away from the kingdom of her abuser and towards the opposite shore, where she lands just in time. There, on the beach by Culross in Fife, she finds a fire with embers still giving warmth.

Jocelinus tells us: “There were, in the neighbourhood, shepherds keeping watch over the flocks. And they beheld a fire lighted close at hand, and coming with haste found the young woman with her childbirth completed, and the child wrapped in rags, lying in the open air. They, moved by pity, took care of them by increasing the fire and supplying food, and procuring other necessaries…”

St Serf took them in and cared for them, and Thenew’s child would become Saint Kentigern.

This story is not provable history, of course, more likely it’s mostly legend making. Yet unknown truths often lie under the surface of legends and I for one have always seen the universal truths in this story.

When I look into the faces of my children, I hope and pray they will never feel the fear and desperation that is on the face of Thenew; of being cast at sea with the desperate hope of finding a safe place.

And if, God forbid, they ever do, I hope they will be met by people like those shepherds.

And if ever they, or I, were to meet someone in such a desperate situation, then I hope we would be like those shepherds and respond with kindness, understanding and compassion.

That, for me, is the truth in this story; it may be an ancient tale, but its relevance is undiminished by time.