In the spring of 1664, the judicial machinery of the Scottish state turned toward the parish of Cortachy in Forfar, focusing its attention on a woman named Elspeth Bruce. Recorded in some contemporary documents as Elizabeth, Elspeth became the subject of a legal process initiated on March 24, 1664, under the designation of case C/EGD/1692. At this time, the prosecution of witchcraft was a matter of serious jurisdictional concern, often involving the collaboration of local kirk sessions and the central courts in Edinburgh.
The historical record regarding Elspeth is stark, preserving her name within the formal catalog of the Justiciary Court under trial reference T/JO/1017. While the surviving documentation confirms that she was formally processed by the legal system, the specific testimonies, depositions, or outcomes concerning her case remain absent from the extant archive. Consequently, Elspeth exists in the historical narrative as a representative figure of those caught within the formal witch-hunting apparatus of late seventeenth-century Scotland, though the precise circumstances of her accusation and the conclusion of her trial remain lost to time.