covenstead
English edit
Etymology edit
coven + stead; first attested in 1969.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
covenstead (plural covensteads)
- (Wicca) A permanent circle or temple used to meet for rituals and to store religious items, often a mundane location.
- 1969, June Johns, King of the witches: the world of Alex Sanders, page 108:
- He began being late for meetings and, as some members travelled quite a distance to the covenstead and had to leave promptly afterwards, Alex took him to task.
- 1986, Raymond Buckland, Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, link
- It used to be that one covendom could not overlap another, so one covenstead would never be closer than six miles to the next.
- 1993, Janet Thompson, Of Witches: Celebrating the Goddess As a Solitary Pagan, page 29,
- If that is the case, then the home of the high Priestess is likely to be referred to as the covenstead.
- 1999, James R. Lewis, Witchcraft today: an encyclopedia of Wiccan and neopagan traditions[1], page 66:
- The covenstead is the meeting place of a coven.
- (Wicca, by metonymy) A Wiccan congregation.
- 1995, Silver RavenWolf, Beneath a Mountain Moon, published 2005, page 104:
- For the last year, the entire covenstead had noticed an increase in the number of outsiders on their properties.
- 2006, Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America[2], page 128:
- In connection with these principles the Dianic Covenstead had a very effective series of exercises and techniques for regaining kinship and attunement with nature.
- 2009, Diana Pharaoh Francis, Bitter Night: A Horngate Witches Book[3], page 53:
- It was easy to say they'd all get along fine—join other covensteads or live free like most everybody else, but the truth was that joining a covenstead was no easy task, and most wouldn't know what to do with themselves without a witch to serve.
Translations edit
permanent circle or temple
|