In the spring of 1597, the village of Lumphanan in Aberdeen became the setting for the legal proceedings against Agnes Fren. Recorded under case C/JO/3095 and later appearing in trial documentation T/JO/1512, Agnes was brought before the authorities on the 25th of April, 1597. As was common in the climate of late sixteenth-century Scotland, the accusations leveled against her were tied to the disruption of local order and the perceived unseen influence over the material well-being of her neighbors.
The specific grievance brought against Agnes concerned the destruction of property, specifically within the realm of dairy production. In an agrarian society where the success of livestock and the subsequent yield of milk and butter were central to survival, the loss of such resources was frequently interpreted through the lens of maleficium, or harmful magic. These charges regarding the dairy formed the crux of the case against her, documenting the intersection of community suspicion and the formal judicial processes that characterized the Scottish witch trials of this period.