In the spring of 1630, Janet Wilkie, a married woman of middling socioeconomic status residing in the village of Wester Wemyss in Fife, became the subject of legal proceedings regarding allegations of witchcraft. Janet lived within the community alongside her husband, who was employed as a local smith, a position that placed the couple within the established social fabric of the parish. On March 20, 1630, official documentation catalogued under case reference C/EGD/1199 formally identified her in relation to these grave suspicions.
The subsequent investigation into the matter transitioned into a judicial process under trial reference T/LA/753. While the records provide a clear administrative trail of Janet’s engagement with the Scottish legal system during this period of heightened scrutiny, they remain brief, focusing on the procedural movement of the case rather than the specific nature of the testimony brought against her. Her experience serves as a stark reflection of the regulatory processes that governed life and suspected transgressions in seventeenth-century Fife.