In the year 1604, the legal machinery of Aberdeen turned its attention toward a resident named Helen Gib. The archival record, preserved under the case reference C/EGD/2191 and trial identifier T/JO/1259, documents the formal proceedings initiated against her during a period when the Scottish kirk and state were intensely preoccupied with the identification and prosecution of witchcraft. While the specific indictments brought against Helen remain part of the broader administrative history of the period, her case is marked by the devastating social consequences that often followed such accusations, extending well beyond the individual on trial.
The repercussions of these proceedings heavily impacted Helen's domestic life, specifically affecting her daughter. In a climate where the stigma of witchcraft was frequently viewed as a hereditary stain, the daughter was publicly slandered and labelled a "witch’s geit"—a term intended to designate her as the offspring of a practitioner of illicit arts. This historical detail underscores the extent to which the legal process entangled entire families, as the reputation of the mother served to alienate the daughter from the community, trapping both in a cycle of suspicion and social exclusion that was characteristic of early modern Scottish judicial practice.