On April 9, 1650, a woman identified as Shiach nein Dod was brought before the authorities to answer to charges of witchcraft, a legal proceeding recorded under the reference number C/JO/3008. A resident of Tarvie, located within the parishes of Contin and Strathgarve in Ross, Shiach lived in a region where the Gaelic language remained the primary medium of daily life, though the official court records maintain the formal English style of the period. The name itself offers a glimpse into her identity; the use of the patronymic *nein*—the Gaelic *nighean*, meaning "daughter"—suggests that her father was a man named Dod, a diminutive form of George.
The subsequent trial, cataloged as T/JO/1269, serves as the final documentation of Shiach’s encounter with the Scottish judicial system during a period of heightened concern regarding supernatural offences. While the surviving records provide few details concerning the specific allegations or the eventual outcome of her case, they firmly place Shiach within the wider pattern of witch trials that marked the mid-seventeenth century in the Highlands. Her appearance in these archives represents a solitary, formal entry in a legal history defined by the intersections of local community life and the rigorous ecclesiastical and civil statutes of the era.