In the spring of 1597, the judicial machinery of Aberdeen turned its attention toward a woman named Elspeth Murry. Recorded under the archival reference C/JO/3110, her case emerged during a period of heightened intensity regarding witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland. On the 23rd of March, 1597, official documentation formalised the legal proceedings against her, marking the beginning of a process that would subject her to the scrutiny of the burgh’s magistrates and the prevailing statutes of the era.
Following the initial registration of her case, the matter proceeded to a formal trial, catalogued under record T/JO/1542. While the specific testimony and the eventual outcome remain obscured by the passage of time, the existence of these records confirms that Elspeth was brought before the court in a climate where such accusations were handled with severe legal formality. Her presence in the surviving archives stands as a historical marker of the lived experience of those caught within the complex social and judicial frameworks of late sixteenth-century Aberdeen.