In the autumn of 1597, the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials reached the Hill of Auchatty in Aberdeen, focusing its scrutiny upon the woman known as the wife of Moress. As a married woman residing in this rural locale, she was swept into the judicial proceedings that characterized the intense climate of the late sixteenth century. On October 21, 1597, her case, formally registered under the reference C/JO/3030, was brought before the authorities, marking the commencement of a process that would test her standing within both her community and the eyes of the law.
The judicial trail for the wife of Moress progressed rapidly from the initial documentation of her case to the subsequent trial, recorded as T/JO/1301. Within the rigid framework of the Scottish courts of the period, she was subjected to the formal scrutiny mandated by the state. While the sparse archival record leaves the specific allegations against her unstated, her trial remains a documented fragment of the period’s wider obsession with perceived occult activity, reflecting the profound legal vulnerability faced by women in her position during the final years of the sixteenth century.