In October 1577, the legal records of the Scottish courts capture the case of John McNoullar, a resident of Ross who found himself drawn into the judicial machinery of the early modern witch trials. On the 25th of that month, the formal documentation of his case, cataloged under C/JO/3350, initiated a process that would lead to his appearance in trial proceedings recorded as T/JO/2143. While the specific nature of the allegations brought against him remains unstated in the extant archives, his status as a male accused of witchcraft places him within a distinct minority of those targeted during this period of intense scrutiny.
The limited documentation surrounding John provides few details regarding the circumstances of his apprehension or the identities of those who may have testified against him. His case serves as a sober reflection of the procedural rigour applied by the Scottish authorities of the late sixteenth century. As the legal process unfolded, John became a subject of the intersecting religious and civil jurisdictions that defined the era, marking his place in the historical record as one of the many individuals who navigated the fraught and often perilous legal landscape of 1577 Ross.