In March 1650, Christian Black, a resident of Kirkliston in the county of Linlithgow, found herself at the centre of formal legal proceedings. The surviving documentation, filed under case reference C/EGD/221, indicates that the judicial process moved with significant momentum, as a confession was formally recorded against her that same month. This period in mid-seventeenth-century Scotland was marked by a heightened intensity in the pursuit of those suspected of maleficium, and the legal records confirm that Christian was subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of trial protocols, specifically those indexed under T/JO/412 and T/JO/536.
The implications of these proceedings extended well beyond the immediate timeframe of her own trial. Christian’s involvement in the judicial system became a matter of lasting record within the local community; over a decade later, in 1661, her name was invoked during the trial of another accused woman, Janet Miller. By this later date, Christian had become part of a documented history of witchcraft accusations in the region, serving as a point of reference for the authorities as they navigated the complex testimonies of subsequent trials.