The record starts in the 1590s with the cases brought by Earl Patrick Stewart, among them the torture and burning of Alison Balfour in 1594. The surviving cases cluster between 1615 and 1645, with 24 accused in 1643 alone.
Much of what the courts called witchcraft was folk healing and the old belief in fairies. In several confessions the fairies or good neighbours were rewritten as the Devil by the clerks, as in the case of Elspeth Reoch. Places named in the surviving records include Deerness, Rousay, Sanday and Westray.
There are separate records on this site for the individual cases of Alison Balfour, Elspeth Reoch, Katherene Bigland, Jonet Drever, Jonet Rendall, Marion Richart, Katherine Craigie and Jonet of Cara.
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