The historical record for Christian Purdie, a resident of Penicuik in the region of Edinburgh, preserves the skeletal framework of a legal proceeding that unfolded during the height of the mid-seventeenth-century Scottish witch-hunts. On January 12, 1662, Christian was formally processed under case file C/EGD/2427, an administrative action that marked the beginning of her involvement with the Scottish judicial system. This initial record serves as the primary documentation of her status as an accused individual within the local jurisdiction of Penicuik.
Following her initial designation, the legal trajectory of Christian’s case progressed toward a higher court, as indicated by the subsequent trial record T/JO/1671. The existence of this specific trial documentation underscores the transition of her case from local scrutiny to formal judicial proceedings within the Court of Justiciary. While the archival fragments focus strictly on the procedural timeline and legal classification of her case, they attest to the rigid bureaucratic process that governed accusations of witchcraft in Restoration-era Scotland.