In November 1597, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned toward Michael Clark, a smith residing in the village of Lasswade, near Edinburgh. As a man of middling status and a skilled metalworker, Michael occupied a position in his community where his craft was often viewed through a lens of suspicion. In the popular imagination of the period, the smith’s mastery over fire and iron frequently invited associations with supernatural influence, rendering those in the trade uniquely vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.
The case against him, recorded under the reference C/EGD/135, proceeded to a formal trial indexed as T/LA/888 on the 12th of November. While the surviving documentation provides few details regarding the specific testimonies offered against him, the mere fact of his appearance before the court reflects the broader anxieties of the late sixteenth century, a period when local authorities were increasingly vigilant in policing the boundary between legitimate trade and forbidden practice. Michael’s experience remains a stark illustration of how a man’s professional identity could inadvertently place him at the center of a criminal inquiry during the height of the Scottish witch trials.