On September 17, 1629, Margaret Small, a resident of Penicuik in the region of Edinburgh, was formally entered into the judicial machinery that defined the Scottish witch trials of the early modern period. Her case, documented under the reference C/EGD/1129, did not see her face the tribunal in isolation; she was processed alongside two other individuals, suggesting that their legal challenges were likely linked by a shared set of accusations or a common local provenance.
Following her initial identification, the trial proceedings (T/JO/323) unfolded in Edinburgh later that same year. While the historical record remains sparse regarding the specific nature of the allegations brought against her or the eventual outcome of the court’s deliberations, the documentation confirms that Margaret was subject to the formal rigors of the Scottish legal system during a period of intense focus on the crime of witchcraft. Despite the brevity of the surviving archive, her inclusion in these records marks her as a participant in one of the most volatile eras of Scottish judicial history.