We are a small Gardnerian coven in the Welsh Marches. We have kept every full moon and every Sabbat since May Eve 1981, and we expect to go on doing so.
The Coven of Cythrawl is a working coven of the Gardnerian tradition. We have eleven initiates at present, the youngest in her twenties and the eldest eighty, and an outer court of three. Among us are a nurse, a joiner, two teachers, a farmer's daughter who is now a farmer, a man who builds websites and a retired beekeeper. We have nothing in common except the Craft, and it has proved to be enough.
We are not a public body, and this is not a recruiting notice. We keep this website because we were tired of seeing our religion described badly, and thought that people who had lived it for a long time ought to try to describe it well.
The name
Cythrawl is a hill: a long wooded ridge in the border country between England and Wales, with a clump of old beeches on its highest point. The coven was founded in a house at its foot, and took its name from it, as covens very often take the name of the place where they meet.
The name is an old border spelling of a Welsh word that the chapels used for the Devil, and it was given to the hill by people who disliked what was said to go on there. We have nothing to do with the Devil, in whom we do not believe. We kept the name because it is the name of our hill, and because there seemed something fitting in a coven of witches living cheerfully under a slander more than two and a half centuries old. Our founding High Priestess tells the whole story in the Journal, in What the Hill Is Called.
Where we come from
Our founders, Hesper and Wystan, were initiated in 1974 in a Gardnerian coven in the English Midlands, whose line runs back to Gerald Gardner's own coven in Hertfordshire. In 1981, with the blessing of their High Priestess, they hived off and moved to the Marches. The first circle of the new coven was cast on May Eve of that year, with three people in it. More is said about our descent on the page about lineage and initiation.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1974 | Hesper and Wystan are initiated in their mother coven in the English Midlands. |
| 1979 | Both are raised to the third degree. |
| 1981 | The Coven of Cythrawl is founded at May Eve, with three members. The book of names is begun. |
| 1983 | The first initiation in the new coven takes place at Candlemas. |
| 1993 | Our first daughter coven hives off. |
| 1997 | Elowen is initiated. |
| 2003 | Corwin is initiated. |
| 2004 | The coven moves to its present covenstead, a mile along the hill from the first. |
| 2009 | Our second daughter coven hives off. |
| 2011 | At Samhain, Hesper and Wystan hand the coven to Elowen and Corwin, and become its elders. |
| 2016 | Wystan dies in January. His name is written in the book. |
| 2019 | Tamsin becomes Maiden. |
| 2020 | From March, and through much of the following year, the coven cannot meet under one roof. Each member keeps the full moons and the Sabbats alone, at an agreed hour. |
| 2022 | The first initiation since the coven came together again takes place at Candlemas. |
| 2025 | This website is opened at Lammas. |
| 2026 | The Journal is begun at Candlemas. The coven completes its forty-fifth year at May Eve. |
How we work
We are a traditional coven, and most of what is said on this site about Gardnerian practice in general is true of us. In particular:
- We meet in circle at every full moon and at each of the eight Sabbats. Not one has gone unkept since 1981. Through much of 2020 and 2021, when households could not meet, each of us kept the night alone at an agreed hour.
- We are led by a High Priestess and a High Priest, at present Elowen and Corwin.
- We work from the Book of Shadows as our line received it, copied by hand, with our own coven's additions kept separately after it.
- Our initiates' circles are skyclad. Our outer court meets clothed.
- We ask at least a year and a day in the outer court before a first initiation, and in practice rather longer.
- We admit nobody under eighteen to any part of the coven's work.
- We charge nothing, for anything, and never have.
- We use the older English names for the festivals: November Eve, Candlemas, May Eve and Lammas.
The covenstead
We meet in a private house below the hill, in a room that is kept for the purpose. It has a floor of oak boards with the circle inlaid in a darker wood, which was the work of our High Priest. Behind the house is an old orchard, and beyond the orchard the ground begins to rise. Twice a year, at Midsummer and at Lammas, we work out of doors on private land on the lower slope.
Because it is someone's home, we do not say where it is.
Our daughter covens
Two covens have hived off from us, in 1993 and in 2009, and both are working today. We are proud of them and see their people at the Sabbats. They are independent, they speak for themselves, and it is not for us to name them.
This website
The site was opened at Lammas 2025. The reference pages are the work of the coven as a whole and have been read and argued over by all of us. The Journal carries pieces by individual members under their Craft names. The pages are kept by Bryn, who does this sort of thing for a living and has been very patient.
In writing it we have kept to one rule about our oath, which is explained on the page about secrecy: we describe nothing of the rites beyond what the founders of the tradition themselves put into print or helped others to publish.
The site has no contact form and no mailing list. It sells nothing, carries no advertising and collects no information about its readers, as the privacy page sets out. We do not take enquiries through it. Anyone who is seeking the Craft will find our advice on the page for seekers.
A last word
We speak for one coven. There is no authority in the Craft above the coven, and other Gardnerians will do some things differently and describe some things differently, and be perfectly right. If anything on this site contradicts what you have been taught by your own High Priestess, believe her.