Marion Leiges, a widowed woman residing in Shairwood, Tarbolton, found herself drawn into the machinery of the Scottish legal system in the spring of 1658. Having previously resided in the parish of Riccarton, Marion was brought before the Ayr court as part of a collective judicial proceeding involving a larger group of individuals. Her path to the courtroom was formalised through the issuance of a porteous roll—a list of indictments prepared by the Justice Clerk—which compelled her attendance to answer for allegations of witchcraft.
The process unfolded rapidly during the first week of April 1658. A porteous roll dated 31 March 1658 had already summoned the entire group to appear, and by 6 April, Marion was officially listed on the Ayr court docket. Under the judicial protocols of the time, the court convened to address the charges specified in case C/EGD/245. This brief window of time between the initial summons and the scheduled trial date reflects the structured, yet urgent, nature of the seventeenth-century legal response to accusations of sorcery in the region.