In November 1679, the judicial machinery of Linlithgow turned its attention toward Jean Ffoddin, a widowed woman residing in the coastal industrial community of Bonhard Pannes. The records concerning her case, indexed under C/LA/3080, mark the beginning of a formal legal process that saw her brought before the authorities during a period when the Scottish courts remained deeply preoccupied with the prosecution of alleged maleficium. As a widow living in a settlement defined by its salt panning industry, Jean occupied a precarious social position, and her transition from member of the Bonhard Pannes community to a defendant in a witchcraft trial underscores the anxieties prevalent in late seventeenth-century Scotland.
Following the initial registration of her case on November 27, Jean was subjected to the rigorous procedural demands of the Scottish legal system, culminating in the trial proceedings recorded as T/LA/1473. The documentation provides a stark outline of her encounter with the law, tracing her movement from the community of Bonhard Pannes into the formal setting of the courtroom. While the archival fragments remain brief, they serve as a testament to the structured, bureaucratic intensity that characterized the pursuit of those accused of witchcraft in the wake of the Restoration, highlighting the specific legal trajectory Jean navigated during the final weeks of 1679.