In the late summer of 1630, the judicial machinery of the Scottish state turned its attention toward Janet Wallace, a resident of the parish of Ochiltree in Ayrshire. Her case, catalogued under the reference C/EGD/1238, was officially brought to light on the 9th of August. During this era, the legal procedures surrounding allegations of malefice were strictly governed by local kirks and regional presbyteries, which served as the primary gatekeepers for the secular courts that would eventually oversee the legal proceedings.
Following the initial record of her identification, the matter of Janet’s case moved toward the formal trial stage, identified in the records as T/LA/781. While the archival documentation preserves the stark administrative timeline of her encounter with the law, it reflects the broader socio-legal landscape of the seventeenth century in Scotland, wherein individuals were subjected to rigorous examination under the suspicion of witchcraft. Janet remains a figure defined by these extant records, which anchor her experience within the documented history of the Ayrshire judicial landscape.