In the autumn of 1643, legal proceedings were initiated against Neane Vcclerick, a sixty-five-year-old widow residing in Kinross. The case, formally catalogued under the records of the Justiciary Court (C/EGD/176), highlights the significance of kinship and reputation in the seventeenth-century Scottish judicial system. Neane was not an isolated figure in the eyes of the authorities; her social standing was inextricably linked to her family history, specifically her status as the niece of Nik Neveing, an individual previously identified in historical accounts as the "witch of Monaie."
The trial (T/LA/30) serves as a stark marker of the intersection between local reputation and the broader anxieties surrounding witchcraft in early modern Scotland. Having been first noted in records at the age of sixty, Neane’s subsequent appearance before the court five years later underscores the persistent nature of such suspicions within a small community. Through these sparse archival fragments, we see the trajectory of a woman whose life was increasingly scrutinized as the state and the kirk tightened their control over social and spiritual boundaries during the mid-seventeenth century.