The historical record concerning Elizabeth Spae Wife remains fragmentary, yet it offers a somber glimpse into the volatile judicial landscape of seventeenth-century Leith. Elizabeth, a resident of South Leith, is identified in surviving legal documentation (C/LA/3126) primarily through her association with the judicial proceedings of her time. The records indicate that she had been executed by fire approximately two decades prior to a 1643 entry, placing the date of her death around 1623. This designation of "Spae Wife"—an archaic term denoting a woman believed to possess the power of divination or prophecy—serves as the primary descriptor of her identity within the archival context.
Archivists and historians have noted a potential connection between Elizabeth and a subsequent case from 1628, which involved an individual identified as Elspeth, the wife of Totmuir, who was also accused in Leith. While it remains a matter of scholarly discussion whether Elizabeth and Elspeth were the same person, the proximity of their residences and the temporal closeness of the accusations suggest they inhabited the same precarious social sphere. These records, while sparse, underscore the reach of the witch trials in the port of Leith during the early modern period, documenting the finality of the sentence imposed upon her as part of the broader legal interventions characteristic of the era.