Clerk,Margaret

Case Reference: C/EGD/790

Case Summary
Case RefC/EGD/790
AccusedMargaret Clerk
Case Start Date2/4/1659
Case Date5/4/1659
Common NameClerk,Margaret
Characterization
TypePrimarySecondary
Unorthodox Religious Practice
Folk Healing
Maleficium
Implicated by Another
Neighbourhood Dispute
White Magic

Notes: The record in the circuit court documents is just comments from witnesses about their depositions and the dittay. Not very clear. Witness depositions have both healing and dispute elements. I decided on dispute because there seems to be more description of malefice rather than curing.

Elphane/Fairyland
Food/Drink
Verbal Formulae
Ritual Acts
Familiars
Shape Changing
Dreams/Visions
Unorthodox Religious Practice
Sympathetic Magic
Riding Dead

Notes: She put a bannock in the wall to protect the cows. Cured with a prayer and I think a fish?

Ritual Objects
  • Bannock
Religious Motifs
  • Prayer

Harm
Human Illness
Human Death
Animal Illness
Animal Death
Female Infertility
Male Impotence
Methods
Aggravating Disease
Transferring Disease
Laying On
Quarreling
Cursing
Poisoning
Healing / Other
Removal of Bewitchment
Recognised Healer
Healing Humans
Healing Animals
Midwifery
Property Damage
Weather Modification

Disease Notes: argument re: wages for a wright, curses, her beasts ate a man's seed stock so he kept her from the brewing water well (it filled with toads), injured the bailie after he poined her goods.

White Magic
  • Protective

  • Appeasement

SourceReferenceNotes
Circuit Court BooksJC10/1 f. 261v-262r, 262v
McDowall, W 'History of the burgh of Dumfries' (Edinburgh, 1867), p. 376. The project did not check Larner's reference to this printed secondary source as part of the research.
Circuit Court PapersJC10/15/2
Process NotesJC26/26 Dumfries dittays 1659 (Biggest dittay roll)
Process NotesJC26/26 Dumfried Bundle
Trials (1)
Trial RefDateYearVerdictSentenceExecution
T/LA/1145 2/4/16591659 GuiltyExecution Yes
Case Notes
We think this is the same person as C/EGD/2334.