In the summer of 1661, Grissel Young, a resident of Niddry in the parish of Liberton, near Edinburgh, found herself drawn into the judicial machinery of the Scottish witch trials. On June 28, 1661, her name was formally entered into the legal records of the era under case reference C/EGD/1595. This process marked the beginning of a precarious ordeal for Grissel, occurring during a period of intense religious and social upheaval when local authorities were particularly vigilant in identifying those suspected of diabolical pacts and harmful magic.
The subsequent proceedings against Grissel were recorded under the trial reference T/JO/1656. While the specific testimony and the eventual verdict remain obscured by the fragmented nature of the surviving judicial archives, the documentation places her squarely within the institutional processes of the Scottish courts. Her involvement in these proceedings reflects the broader patterns of local litigation that characterized the mid-seventeenth century, where the lives of individuals like Grissel were frequently subject to the scrutiny of both ecclesiastical and secular authorities tasked with policing the boundaries of orthodox belief and practice.