In the spring of 1658, Violat Guillieland, a widow residing in the parish of Dunlop in Ayrshire, found herself swept into the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials. On 31 March 1658, she was summoned alongside a wider group of individuals to appear before the court in Ayr, an event that marked the beginning of formal proceedings against those identified in the records as the "Dunlop witches." These legal actions were documented across two distinct *porteous* rolls—the official lists of those accused of crimes—which mandated their appearance for trial on 6 April 1658.
When the court convened on that April day, Violat was not present to answer the charges laid against her. The judicial record officially categorizes her status as a fugitive, noting that she was "not to be found" by the authorities tasked with bringing her to justice. Consequently, her name remains inscribed in the archives as one who evaded the reach of the Ayr court, leaving the specific details of the accusations against her unrecorded as she disappeared from the historical narrative of the 1658 proceedings.