In December 1626, the records of the Scottish Privy Council brought notice to a man named Johnne Propter, a resident of Ellon in the region of Aberdeen. The administrative entries concerning his case, catalogued under reference C/EGD/992, denote his formal inclusion in the judicial proceedings of that era. Despite the brevity of the surviving documentation, the emergence of Johnne within these state papers marks him as a participant in a period of intense legal scrutiny regarding charges of maleficium and occult practice that characterised the early seventeenth century in Northeast Scotland.
The subsequent trial, recorded under reference T/LA/461, provides the final archival trace of Johnne’s encounter with the Scottish justice system. While the precise details of the accusations levied against him remain obscured by the passage of time and the lacunae of the extant registers, the existence of these formal records confirms that his case followed the established legal trajectory of the time. Johnne remains a part of the historical landscape of the 1563–1736 witch trials, representing the administrative realities faced by those brought before the courts in the parish of Ellon.