In the spring of 1629, the legal apparatus of early modern Scotland turned its attention toward Janet Weir, a married woman residing in the settlement of Baruch, located in the county of Lanark. On April 15, 1629, Janet was officially brought into the judicial system under case reference C/EGD/1104. At this time, the proceedings surrounding her alleged involvement in witchcraft were initiated, setting in motion a series of formal investigations that would move through the jurisdictional requirements of the period.
The subsequent documentation of her ordeal is preserved across two distinct legal records, T/JO/2174 and T/LA/708. These files denote the progression of Janet’s case through the local and central courts, marking the standard procedural path for those accused under the Witchcraft Act of 1563. While the specific nature of the accusations brought against her remains obscured by the brevity of the surviving administrative record, these filings confirm that Janet was subjected to the full rigor of the Scottish criminal justice system during a period of heightened concern regarding supernatural intervention in the lives of the peasantry.