Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald

A reported conversation with a ghost raises a problem of evidence in the trial of Duncan Terig, also called Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald. Walter Scott presented this record to the Bannatyne Club in 1831. The case concerns the death of Sergeant Arthur Davis, while Scott's introduction considers other legal disputes in which people claimed knowledge supplied by spirits. His examples include a comic debate over whether an apparition should have a jury of ghosts.

The witness statements bring these questions down to particular objects and recollections. A gun with a cracked barrel, shoes with altered fittings and rings seen on a woman's fingers receive close attention. Accounts of an apparition appear alongside efforts to identify belongings and remember when they were seen. For readers interested in legal history and beliefs about spirits, the volume offers a record of how unusual claims and everyday observations entered court proceedings.