In the summer of 1661, the name of Jonet Hog was entered into the formal records of the Scottish judicial system amidst the intense administrative activity that characterized the witch hunts of the mid-seventeenth century. On June 13, 1661, proceedings were initiated against Jonet, a married woman residing in Linton—a location that remains historically ambiguous, potentially situated in the presbyteries of Peebles, Kelso, or Dunbar. While the fragmentary nature of the archival evidence leaves the precise geography of her life open to debate, the administrative documentation captures the commencement of a legal process that would see her name appear again in the rolls of the judiciary fourteen years later.
The record of this case (C/EGD/1585) provides a stark trajectory through the legal apparatus of the period. Following the initial 1661 investigation, the trail of documentation leads to a subsequent trial, indexed as T/JO/1675. This chronological gap suggests a prolonged engagement with the courts, typical of the complexities involved in seventeenth-century witchcraft prosecutions. Through these sparse notations, Jonet remains a figure defined by the formal scrutiny of her time, her life intersected by the mechanisms of the Scottish kirk and state as they sought to address accusations of the supernatural.