In the spring of 1662, the legal machinery of the Scottish witch trials turned its attention to Mary NcNivan, a resident of Bute. Her case, documented under the identifier C/JO/3273, entered the formal judicial record on March 26, 1662. Although historical entries occasionally note that her father’s surname was rendered as McNiven, the primary documentation preserves her identity as Mary, a woman whose life became irrevocably entwined with the intensive pursuit of suspected witchcraft that characterized the mid-seventeenth century in the Western Isles.
Following the initial registration of her case, the proceedings against Mary progressed to a formal trial, recorded under the reference T/JO/1931. While the brevity of the surviving documentation leaves the specific nature of the allegations against her unstated, the move from an initial case filing to a full trial signifies the gravity with which the local authorities viewed her situation. Within the context of Bute’s judicial history, Mary represents one of the many individuals whose lives were subjected to the rigorous legal scrutiny of the period, marking a significant point of intersection between her personal history and the broader regulatory climate of the era.