In the turbulent landscape of early 17th century Orkney, Marable Couper found her life intricately entangled with the sinister threads of witchcraft accusations that marked the witch trials era. Residing on the North Side of Birsay, Marable was a married woman whose existence would be drastically altered by the charge of witchcraft. The records detail her trial on the 7th of July, 1624, during which she was found guilty and sentenced to death by strangulation and burning at Lonhead. This grim fate followed a prior encounter with allegations, where she faced a non-specific court proceeding that led to her banishment from the parish of Birsay after she ostensibly agreed to leave to have charges dropped.
Marable's story is preserved through the legal and accusatory records, which document allegations of her causing harm to property—specifically crops, ale, animals, meal, and buildings. These damages served as the primary basis for the accusations against her. Despite an earlier attempt to barter her freedom with a promise to depart from Birsay, the refusal to leave seems to have cemented her fate upon her return. On the day of her trial, the presiding authorities secured a confession, although the details of such admissions remain unspecified in the surviving documentation. This confession played a crucial role in the guilty verdict that led to her execution, drawing her into a broader tapestry of fear and superstition that characterized the period of witch trials in Scotland.