On June 6, 1615, Janet Drever, a resident of Westray in Orkney, appeared before the Court of the Bishopric of Orkney to face charges of witchcraft. The legal proceedings against her took place during a period when such cases were frequently brought before the ecclesiastical and secular courts of the northern isles. The records of the court provide a precise account of the formal outcome of her trial, reflecting the judicial standards and punitive measures characteristic of the era’s approach to those accused of maleficium or associated spiritual transgressions.
Following the court's determination of guilt, Janet was subjected to a public and physical sentence designed to mark her exclusion from the community. She was ordered to be "scrudgit"—scourged or whipped—from one end of the town to the other, a traditional form of corporal punishment meant to act as both a penance and a public spectacle. Following this act of physical correction, the court decreed that Janet be banished from the jurisdiction of the Bishopric, effectively severing her ties to her home in Westray and forcing her into exile.