Margerat Bane, a woman of humble origins residing in the small Scottish village of Lumphanan in Aberdeen, was a midwife by trade—a role that placed her at the heart of her community's most intimate and precarious moments. Born Margaret Clerk, she was widely known under both her maiden and married names. Margerat was no stranger to the courts; over the span of three decades, she had repeatedly been summoned to attend justice proceedings but had managed to elude the full weight of legal scrutiny until her later years. By the time she faced accusations of witchcraft, she was at least 55 years old.
In the spring of 1597, Margerat stood accused of maleficium—harmful magic. This charge was often leveled against those whose actions or mere presence were believed to bring ill fortune or suffering. On March 25th of the same year, Margerat appeared before the court in Aberdeen, where she was ultimately found guilty of the charges brought against her. The judgement was uncompromising; an execution sentence was handed down swiftly, and she faced this grim fate within the month.
The threads of Margerat's story interweave with those of others embroiled in the witch trials. She was denounced by Jonat Lucas and implicated as an accomplice by Jonet Spaldarge, which likely compounded her woes in a society fraught with fear of malevolent forces. Margerat's daughter also faced execution, a sobering testament to how accusations of witchcraft could ripple destructively through families. Her case illustrates the precarious position of women in early modern Scotland, where the role of a healer could, under the dark lens of suspicion, shift tragically into that of a malefactor.