In December 1649, a woman named Bigs Flayer, a resident of the parish of Carrington in Edinburgh, found herself at the centre of a formal legal inquiry regarding allegations of witchcraft. The records of the Edinburgh Commissary Court (C/EGD/2064) document the official commencement of her case on the 4th of December, an era when the Scottish legal system was increasingly preoccupied with the prosecution of such offences. As the proceedings moved toward trial under reference T/LA/2057, the legal machinery of the seventeenth-century kirk and state sought to formalise the accusations brought against her.
Central to the judicial process was a formal confession provided by Bigs. While the specific content of this testimony remains sequestered within the archives, the existence of a recorded confession was a pivotal element in the standard evidentiary procedure of the period. This document served as the foundational narrative upon which the court relied, marking a significant stage in her interaction with the authorities of Carrington and the wider legal framework governing the suppression of witchcraft during this turbulent century.