In the late autumn of 1649, Agnes Cairns, a resident of the parish of Pencaitland in Haddington, became the subject of a formal legal inquiry regarding allegations of witchcraft. Her case, documented under reference C/EGD/1971, progressed through the judicial system during a period of heightened sensitivity to such charges within the Scottish kirk and state. Following her initial apprehension, legal proceedings were formalized on 27 September 1649, marking the transition from local suspicion to the serious administrative rigor of the Haddington courts.
The historical record for Agnes indicates that the process moved beyond mere accusation, culminating in a recorded confession. While the specific nature of the testimony provided during her examination—as cataloged in the trial records under T/LA/1994—remains part of the wider archival preservation of this era, the existence of this document confirms that she spoke directly to the charges brought against her. By engaging with the formal mechanisms of the law in seventeenth-century Haddington, Agnes remains a documented figure in the complex history of Scotland’s early modern judicial response to witchcraft.