In November 1626, legal proceedings were initiated against Euphame Rid, a married woman residing in the settlement of Geise Mikle in the county of Caithness. The administrative records of the period, cataloged under case reference C/EGD/978, document her entry into the formal judicial system of early modern Scotland at a time when accusations of witchcraft were handled through a rigorous, albeit structured, legal apparatus. By the 28th of November, the state had prepared the groundwork for her examination, marking the beginning of a process that would move from initial apprehension to the formal setting of a trial.
The subsequent trial, recorded under reference T/LA/448, positioned Euphame within the ecclesiastical and secular tensions characteristic of seventeenth-century Caithness. While the surviving documentation provides the structural framework of the case—naming the accused, her marital status, and her place of residence—it stands as a testament to the methodical documentation practices of the Scottish courts during this era. Through these records, Euphame remains a figure whose interaction with the law reflects the broader social anxieties and regulatory reach of the Scottish judicial system during the late 1620s.