In the summer of 1650, Marion Hastie, a resident of the East Lothian burgh of Haddington, became caught in the mechanisms of the Scottish judicial system during a period of heightened concern regarding the presence of witchcraft. On June 26, 1650, she was formally processed by the authorities, an event preserved in the surviving legal records under reference C/JO/2699. While the contemporary documentation offers little regarding her personal background or the specific grievances leveled against her, her case was not an isolated incident; she was listed for trial alongside three other individuals, suggesting a collective judicial proceeding that was characteristic of the era’s approach to such accusations.
The subsequent trial, recorded under the reference T/JO/147, marks the extent of the extant documentation concerning Marion. In the context of early modern Scotland, these legal proceedings were serious affairs, often involving local kirk sessions and civil magistrates who were tasked with investigating reports of maleficium or demonic covenant. Despite the sparsity of the remaining records, Marion’s inclusion in these documents highlights the reach of the 1650 trials in Haddington and the administrative rigor with which the Scottish state documented those suspected of contravening the Witchcraft Act of 1563.