In the summer of 1661, Jonnet Young, a resident of Niddry in the parish of Liberton, near Edinburgh, was drawn into the mechanisms of the Scottish judicial system amidst the intense climate of the mid-seventeenth-century witch trials. According to legal records designated under case reference C/EGD/1596, proceedings against her were officially recorded on June 28, 1661. This period marked a significant escalation in the pursuit of those suspected of maleficium, as authorities across the Lowlands increasingly turned to the courts to address reports of supernatural interference in the lives of their neighbors.
The documentation regarding Jonnet remains anchored in these specific administrative files, which cross-reference a trial entry dated to 1655 (T/JO/1655). While the surviving records provide the framework of her legal encounter—noting her home in Niddry and the formal dates associated with her appearance before the commissioners—they reflect the stark reality of the period's bureaucratic process. These entries serve as the primary testament to Jonnet’s experience within the Scottish legal system, capturing the moment her name was inscribed into the history of the early modern witch hunts.