Margaret Tasker, residing in the parish of Kirkliston in Linlithgow, finds her name threading through the dense fabric of Scotland’s witch trials during a tumultuous period in the mid-17th century. Her ordeal begins in earnest on February 27, 1650, when she was implicated in activities deemed nefarious by the standards of the day. The specific details of her case—recorded under case number C/EGD/219—remain sparse in the surviving archives. However, the very invocation of her name under suspicion of witchcraft aligned Margaret with the social and religious anxieties that swirled through Scotland's communities at the time.
Years later, during the notorious witch trial of Janet Miller in 1661, Margaret's name resurfaced. This connection, documented in the records as a marker in Janet's trial, suggests a persistent shadow of suspicion that lingered around Margaret well beyond her initial accusation. Although detailed accounts of her roles in the incidents leading to the trials—T/JO/414 and T/JO/534—are not detailed, the repeated invocation of her name in official records hints at the social dynamics and complex network of accusations typical of the period. Margaret's story is thus emblematic of the era’s fervent clamor for identifying and prosecuting witches, a tragic thread in the fabric of early modern Scottish life, reflective of the broader paranoia and scapegoating dynamics of that era.