On 8 September 1630, Margaret Fisher, a resident of the coastal town of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, became the subject of legal proceedings recorded under case reference C/EGD/1252. The charges brought against her centered on allegations of participating in a meeting of witches, a grave accusation within the legal and theological framework of early seventeenth-century Scotland. In a society where the sea was the lifeblood of the economy, the nature of these charges took on particular urgency; official trial records (T/LA/796) indicate that Margaret stood accused of causing direct property damage to local vessels.
The intersection of supernatural allegations with the destruction of boats suggests that Margaret’s case was deeply embedded in the anxieties of her maritime community. By connecting her presence at an illicit assembly to the literal splintering or loss of fishing craft, the prosecution sought to link the esoteric crime of witchcraft to the tangible, economic hardship of her neighbors. As the proceedings moved through the judicial process, Margaret remained at the center of a community effort to identify the source of their misfortune, documenting a moment in Peterhead’s history where the perceived influence of the invisible world was held directly accountable for the physical welfare of the town’s fleet.