In the late autumn of 1629, Jonet Rendall, a woman of very poor socioeconomic standing who lived as a vagabond in the Rigger district of Rendall, Orkney, found herself embroiled in the judicial machinery of the seventeenth-century Scottish witch trials. While archival dating remains a subject of scholarly debate—with some sources placing her trial on November 11, 1629, while other records associated with the Orkney collection suggest a date as late as 1646—the surviving documentation captures the gravity of the proceedings brought against her. Jonet was formally charged with participation in a witches' meeting, a serious allegation that placed her at the intersection of local community anxieties and the rigid legal frameworks of the period.
Beyond the charge of attending an illicit assembly, the accusations leveled against Jonet specifically implicated her in the destruction of property, with particular focus on the damage caused to local dairy production. As the proceedings unfolded, a confession was formally recorded against her, documenting her response to these grave indictments. Through these surviving fragments, the case of Jonet illustrates the precarious position occupied by those on the margins of Orkney society, whose movements and alleged interactions were increasingly scrutinized under the intense pressure of contemporary witchcraft investigations.