In the quiet village of Leckie, nestled near Gargunnock in the county of Stirling, lived a man named Steven Malcome. Known within his community, Steven's name appears in historical records with a curious frequency, particularly in 1628, when he found himself at the heart of a presbytery investigation concerning his practices of charming and healing. At that time in Scotland, such practices could come under intense scrutiny as the boundary between accepted folk medicine and illicit witchcraft was a precarious one, subject to the shifting tides of societal fear and religious orthodoxy.
In March of 1628, official records show an inquiry into Steven's activities by the presbytery, suggesting that his reputed abilities caught the attention of local authorities. By April of the same year, Steven had recorded a confession, though the contents of that confession remain unspecified in the surviving documents. Such confessions were not unusual in witchcraft proceedings, which often combined genuine belief, community pressures, and sometimes more coercive means to procure testament against the accused.
Though the full details of Steven's trial remain elusive, the documents from that year align him with a broader pattern of witchcraft accusations during a period when fear of witches was rampant across Scotland. Steven Malcome's case, with his charms and healing, illustrates a challenging aspect of early modern Scottish life, where practices that may have been intended to help could easily be perceived as harmful under the prevailing social and religious anxieties of the time.