In the year 1644, Isobel Young found herself at the center of a harrowing episode in Queensferry, Linlithgow, when she was accused of witchcraft alongside her mother and sister. At only 25 years old, Isobel belonged to a middling socioeconomic class, which suggests her family occupied a modest but respectable position within their community. Despite this status, the pervasive fear and suspicion of witchcraft that swept through early modern Scotland did not spare her family. The specifics of the accusation remain largely undocumented, but the involvement of her closest female relatives indicates how perilously the bonds of kinship could entangle women in such accusations.
Isobel's trial, chronicled as case C/EGD/2337, took place later that year. The scant records available state that she was executed by burning, a common method employed during the Scottish witch trials reflecting the period's severe measures against those convicted of witchcraft. This form of execution was not only a physical ordeal but also a public spectacle, intended to serve as a grim deterrent. Isobel's fate, shared with many others in a time and place marked by intense fear of the supernatural, underscores the tragic dimensions of the Scottish witch hunts. Her story, while emblematic of many women accused of witchcraft during this turbulent era, provides a window into the broader societal anxieties and judicial practices of 17th-century Scotland.