On July 12, 1629, the legal and ecclesiastical machinery of early seventeenth-century Scotland turned toward Janet Hill, a resident of Preston, near Edinburgh. Her name appears in the judicial records as part of a group of three individuals facing accusations of witchcraft. While the surviving documentation is sparse, it is clear that her case was processed within the formal structure of the time, with a presbytery note explicitly scheduling her trial for that midsummer day in Edinburgh.
The records for Janet offer little insight into the specific allegations leveled against her, nor do they provide a transcript of the proceedings held that day. In this era, such documentation often focused on the administrative coordination between local kirk sessions and the central courts. Consequently, Janet remains a figure glimpsed only through the brevity of a trial ledger, a participant in a historical moment defined by the rigid interplay of community surveillance and judicial authority.