In the early spring of 1633, the legal machinery of the Scottish judiciary turned toward the parish of Kilsyth in Dunbartonshire, specifically targeting a man named William Baird. A resident of the lands of Holl, William was apprehended and formally processed under the case reference C/LA/3301. The administrative record of his encounter with the authorities provides a precise anchor for this event, identifying him as part of the broader pattern of judicial scrutiny that defined the mid-seventeenth-century pursuit of witchcraft in the Lowlands.
The subsequent legal proceedings against William were documented under trial reference T/LA/2090, initiated on the 19th of February. While the surviving records are brief in their narrative detail, they confirm that William was subjected to the formal machinery of the law during a period when local commissions were increasingly tasked with investigating allegations of diabolical pacts and harmful magic. His case stands as a specific archival entry, preserving his identity and his residence at Holl within the somber ledger of Scotland’s historical witch trials.