St. Bernards have never carried brandy barrels. The dog’s mission is entirely different  — apart from anything else giving brandy to someone with hypothermia is a disastrous mistake  — but tourists have always loved the idea, so they still pose wearing them. Before they were trained as mountain rescue dogs, they were used by the monks at the hospice to carry food, as their large size and docile temperament made them good pack animals.

The brandy barrel was the idea of a young English, who was much favoured by Queen Victoria. He was a renowned painter of landscapes and animals, best known for his painting The Monarch of the Glen and for sculpting the lions around the base of Nelson’s Column. Originally, St Bernards were known as Barry hounds, who rescued forty people but was unfortunately killed by the forty-⁠first, who mistook him for a wolf.