Coven

January 15, 2003, 20:23

Kalleh

Coven

Does anyone here know anything about the word "coven"? I came across that word recently and had vaguely known it to be related to witches. In looking it up, I find that it is an assembly of 13 witches and comes "perhaps from Middle English covent, assembly, convent". Why 13? It comes from "convent"? Witches and nuns?

January 16, 2003, 02:21

BobHale

quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
Does anyone here know anything about the word "coven"? I came across that word recently and had vaguely known it to be related to witches. In looking it up, I find that it is an assembly of 13 witches and comes "perhaps from Middle English covent, assembly, convent". Why 13? It comes from "convent"? Witches and nuns?

I don't know why 13 but my dictionary suggests that both words come from the Latin convenire (to come together): coven via the Old French covin (a group) and convent from the Old French covent (a meeting).

This site says

quote:
coven - "a gathering of witches," 1660s, earlier a variant of covent, cuvent early forms of convent (q.v.). Association with witches arose in Scotland c.1500, but not popularized until Sir Walter Scott used it in this sense in "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft" (1830).

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

January 16, 2003, 06:26

<Asa Lovejoy>

I've nothing to back it up, but I'm guessing that the number 13 came about as a christian attribution, and not as an original number chosen by pre-christian animist religions.

What's odd about a "convent" of witches? I suggest reading The Mists of Avalon for an interesting fictional account of "witches" vs. christians. IMHO, christians have given witches a really bad rap!

January 16, 2003, 08:11

Kalleh

Thanks, Bob, for that wonderful site. I see your point about the "13" Asa, and I imagine the answer may be in that "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft" that Bob recommends. I have also found out that "coven" comes from the Latin "convenire" meaning "to agree". I imagine that "convent" then--an assembly of nuns--derived from the same word.

January 16, 2003, 08:27

arnie

quote:
"coven" comes from the Latin "convenire" meaning "to agree".

A better translation would be the more literal "to come together". The modern word "convention", as in a meeting of Star Trek fans or of sales staff, comes from the same root.

January 16, 2003, 09:44

C J Strolin

Then again, covens of witches were famous (or, depending on your point of view, infamous) for orgiastic rituals.

This is, of course, what led to the popular saying "Nothin' says lovin' like something in the coven."

January 16, 2003, 10:25

Hic et ubique

The saying I'd heard is "Nothin' says lovin' like something in the oven."

January 16, 2003, 21:48

<Asa Lovejoy>

"Nothin' says lovin' like something in the oven.
***************************************

Cooked fruit? Fetus - or foetus - means "fruit".

Shufitz' quotation is a parody of the Pillsbury advertisements of bygone days.I suppose they dropped the ads because they showed how horny the Pillsbury doughboy was. Pop him in the oven and get him hot and just watch him rise!