In the late seventeenth century, the judicial records of Edinburgh bear witness to the legal proceedings initiated against Marion Purdie. In 1684, Marion was brought before the authorities to answer to the charge of witchcraft, a process documented under the case reference C/EGD/1921. While the specific testimony and the immediate outcome of the litigation remain limited within the surviving archival scope, her case represents a distinct instance of the broader pattern of judicial scrutiny that characterized the period.
The archival documentation concerning Marion highlights the complexities of reconstructing such local histories, noting that researchers have yet to fully cross-reference the references to her trial found in contemporary printed secondary sources. Consequently, the brief notation serves primarily as a formal record of her encounter with the Scottish criminal justice system. Marion’s presence in these records preserves the memory of her involvement in the legal mechanisms that governed the social and religious anxieties of Edinburgh in the 1680s.