Coven of Cythrawl, founded May Eve 1981
Wicca and the Gardnerian Craft, plainly told
We are a Gardnerian coven in the Welsh Marches. This is our account of the religion we practise: where it came from, what its people believe and do, and how a seeker might find the way to it.
Merry meet
A small coven, and an open book about a closed tradition
Wicca is a modern pagan religion of witchcraft. It honours a Goddess and a Horned God, keeps eight festivals through the turning year, meets by the light of the full moon, and holds that the natural world is sacred. It came into public view in England in the early 1950s, and Gardnerian Wicca, named after Gerald Gardner, is its oldest form.
Ours is an initiatory tradition. Its rites are private and its members are bound by an oath, so there are things this website will never contain. But a great deal about the Craft is not secret at all: its history, its beliefs, the shape of its year, the way a coven is run, and what is asked of anyone who seeks to join one. We have tried to set all of that down here, accurately and without embroidery.
We wrote these pages for the curious neighbour, the student, the worried parent and the serious seeker alike. Nothing here is for sale, and nobody will ask you for anything.
Begin here
Three places to start
Whatever brought you, one of these pages is probably the one you want first.
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If you are new to all of this
What Is Wicca?
A plain introduction to the religion: what Wiccans believe, what they do, and what they most certainly do not.
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If you want the tradition itself
What Is Gardnerian Wicca?
Lineage, the three degrees, the Book of Shadows and the oath: what makes a witch a Gardnerian.
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If you think this may be your path
For Seekers
How to look for a coven in Britain, what a good one will ask of you, and the warning signs of a bad one.
The whole of the site
Explore the Craft
Some seventy pages, arranged in eight parts.
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The History of Wicca
From the New Forest in 1939 to a world religion: what was claimed, and what historians have found.
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Beliefs
The Goddess and the God, the Rede, the Charge, the elements, and what witches believe about death.
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Practice
The coven, the circle, the working tools, the esbats, cakes and wine, magic and the rites of passage.
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Learning the Craft
What anyone can learn without an oath: meditation, the household altar, the moon, candles and protection.
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The Wheel of the Year
The eight Sabbats from Samhain to the Autumn Equinox, and how our coven keeps each of them.
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South of the Equator
Keeping the Wheel where Yule falls in June and the sun stands in the north at noon.
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Gerald Gardner
The life of the retired civil servant who brought the witch cult into the daylight.
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The Principles of Wiccan Belief
The thirteen principles agreed by American witches in 1974, and how a British coven reads them.
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Questions and Answers
Honest answers to what people most often ask, including the awkward questions.
The Wheel of the Year
The eight Sabbats
Four Greater Sabbats at the turning of the seasons, and four Lesser Sabbats at the solstices and equinoxes.
A blessing
May the moon light your road, may the old gods know your name, and may you come at last to the place where you are known.
A parting blessing of the Coven of Cythrawl
From the Journal
In our own voices
Essays by members of the coven, signed with their Craft names.
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The Journal
Telling the Bees
Our founding High Priestess on fifty years of bees, the herbs by the back door, and the old custom of telling the hive when someone dies.
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The Journal
Keeping November Eve
Our High Priestess on why the coven still calls Samhain by its older English name, and what it means to lay a place at the table for the dead.