In the summer of 1661, Marion Greinlaw, a resident of Sunniesyd in the parish of Newton, Edinburgh, became caught in the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials. On July 25, 1661, she provided a confession to the authorities, though she would later retract this statement, only to offer another shortly thereafter. A final, third confession was recorded on July 29, 1661, while she was held within the confines of the Tolbooth. Throughout this period, the records indicate that Marion was subjected to an unidentified form of torture, a procedure frequently employed during this era to secure testimonies from the accused.
By January 30, 1662, the legal proceedings against Marion had advanced through multiple formal trials, identified in the records as T/LA/278 and T/LA/374. The formal charges brought against her centered on her alleged participation in a witches' meeting. Following her initial admission of guilt, her subsequent retractions, and the judicial processes conducted in Edinburgh, her case serves as a documented example of the administrative and interrogative rigour applied to those suspected of maleficium during the mid-seventeenth century.