In the summer of 1661, Elspett Blackie, a resident of Gilmerton in the parish of Liberton, became caught in the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials. The records indicate that her case, categorized as C/EGD/388, commenced with a series of interrogations. Elspett provided formal confessions on July 29 and again on August 7, 1661, during which she admitted to attending a witches’ meeting. Her name further surfaced in the testimony of Elspeth Mowat, who identified her as an accomplice during the proceedings of other trials, linking Elspett to a broader web of alleged criminal activity as perceived by the contemporary courts.
Following her second confession on August 7, Elspett was brought before the authorities in Edinburgh. Within two days of her trial, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. On August 9, 1661, the sentence was carried out at the Common Green, where she was executed by being strangled and burned. Her case remains documented as a singular, swift judicial process typical of the intense period of prosecution that swept through the region during the mid-seventeenth century.