The Coven

The coven is the whole of the Gardnerian church: a handful of initiates, a High Priestess and a High Priest, meeting in a private room. Above it there is nothing at all.

Gerald Gardner took the word coven from the records of the Scottish witch trials by way of Margaret Murray, who believed that witches had always met in groups of thirteen. The history was wrong, but the institution has proved sound. A group small enough to meet in a sitting room, in which everyone knows everyone, turns out to be a very good vessel for a religion of this kind.

Size

The traditional limit is thirteen. In practice most British covens are smaller, with between five and ten initiates. The limit has a sound reason behind it, quite apart from tradition: nine feet is the usual width of the circle, and a group much larger than a dozen can neither fit inside it nor reach the degree of trust that the work requires. A coven that grows beyond thirteen is expected to divide.

Those who lead

The High Priestess

She leads the coven and represents the Goddess in its rites. She is responsible for the training and welfare of its members, decides who shall be admitted and when a person is ready for initiation, and in any disagreement the last word is hers. A good High Priestess uses that last word seldom. The traditional description of her is first among equals, and the phrase is a fair test of whether she is doing the job well.

The High Priest

He leads the coven beside her and represents the God. He shares the teaching, invokes the Goddess upon the High Priestess at the esbat, and takes charge of much of the practical running of the circle. The two are working partners. They may or may not be a couple in private life.

The Maiden

She is the High Priestess's deputy, who assists her in the rites and can stand in for her. The office is often held by a second-degree witch who is expected to lead a coven of her own one day.

The elders

Initiates of the third degree, and especially those who formerly led the coven or have founded covens that descend from it. They hold no office. Their advice is sought because it is worth having.

Some covens have other offices, such as a Summoner who carries messages and sees to the door. Many do not, and ours gets by without.

How a coven is run

A Gardnerian coven is not a democracy, and it is not a dictatorship either. The High Priestess and High Priest carry the responsibility and make the decisions that belong to the rites and to initiation. In everything else a well-run coven proceeds by talking things over until there is agreement, and a High Priestess who found herself regularly overruling her coven would ask herself what had gone wrong.

The check on bad leadership is simple and effective. Nobody can be compelled to stay. A witch who leaves a coven remains a witch, takes their initiation with them, and is free to seek another coven or, if of sufficient degree, to found one. A High Priestess who misuses her position ends by presiding over an empty room.

The covenstead

The place where a coven meets is its covenstead. In nearly every case this is a private house, usually that of the High Priestess, in which a room can be cleared for the purpose or is kept for it. A few fortunate covens have the use of private land for outdoor rites in summer.

Because it is a home, its whereabouts is not disclosed.

The outer court

Many covens, ours among them, keep an outer court: a training circle for people who are interested in initiation but have not yet received it. Its meetings are held in ordinary clothes and use nothing from the Book of Shadows. Its purpose is to let seeker and coven get to know each other over a year or more before anyone makes a commitment, and to teach what can properly be taught beforehand. Nobody in an outer court is under any oath, and anyone may leave it at any time without ill feeling.

Hiving off

When a coven has grown too large, or when one of its members has reached the third degree and is ready to lead, a new coven is founded. This is called hiving off. The new High Priestess and High Priest leave with the blessing of the old, often taking one or two others with them, and from that day the new coven is wholly independent. Old custom asks that the new covenstead be a reasonable distance from the old one, so that the two do not tread on each other's toes.

The original is then the mother coven and the new one its daughter. The bond between them is one of affection and of shared lineage. It carries no authority. A mother coven does not govern its daughters, and the tradition as a whole is nothing more than the sum of all such families.

Belonging to a coven

Outsiders tend to picture a coven as either sinister or frivolous. The reality is domestic. A coven is a group of friends who have made promises to one another and to the gods, and who keep them by turning up: at every full moon, in every month of the year, whatever the weather and whatever else is going on in their lives. Members see each other through illness, bereavement, divorce and redundancy. They are godparents to one another's children and carry one another's coffins.

It is what one old account of the word religion takes it to mean: that which binds. People who come to the Craft hoping for power or for glamour are usually disappointed. People who come hoping for a place to belong, and are prepared to earn it, are usually not.