In 1661, the name of Elspeth Chib appears within the judicial records of Edinburgh, specifically identified as a resident of the parish of Liberton. While the broader landscape of the 1661 Scottish witch-hunt was marked by a surge of accusations following the restoration of the monarchy, the documentation regarding Elspeth is notably distinct. Unlike the formal transcripts of depositions or final sentences that define many cases from this turbulent period, her name survives only as a secondary reference within the trial record of another individual.
Because her inclusion in the historical record is tethered to the testimony of someone else, there is no surviving trial transcript for Elspeth herself. This absence of a dedicated case file means that the specific allegations or circumstances that led to her being identified as a witch remain unrecorded. Consequently, Elspeth represents one of the many figures whose involvement in the judicial proceedings of the seventeenth century is documented solely through the accusations of her contemporaries, leaving the precise nature of her interactions with the court a matter of scholarly limitation.