Katherine Jones dochter, a 50-year-old married woman from the small community of Stenhous on the Shetland Islands, stands as a stark figure in the annals of the early modern Scottish witch trials. Historical records indicate that Katherine's journey into the shadowy realms of suspicion and accusation began with a claim that marked her out nearly all her life: she purportedly met the devil as a young girl, nearly forty years prior to her trial in 1616. This encounter, whether real or reputed, set in motion a narrative that culminated in a court trial convened at Scalloway, under the jurisdiction of the Sheriffdom of Yetland.
On the 2nd of October, 1616, Katherine's case came before the Court of Justiciary, where she was found guilty of witchcraft. The judgment passed down was one of the harshest measures of the time—execution by strangulation followed by burning. The records, though scarce on details of the proceedings, reveal the completion of her sentence within a legal system that viewed such encounters with the supernatural as a grave threat to the social and religious order. Katherine's story, encapsulated in the stark facts of her trial and execution, serves as a poignant reminder of the intense fear and suspicion that pervaded early modern Scottish society, as well as the harsh realities faced by those accused of witchcraft during this turbulent period.