Usage in Literature and Popular Culture
In fantasy stories and popular culture, a coven is a gathering of witches to work spells in tandem. Such imagery can be traced back to Renaissance prints depicting witches and to the three "weird sisters" in Shakespeare's play Macbeth. More orgiastic witches' meetings are also depicted in Robert Burns' poem "Tam o' Shanter" and in Goethe's play Faust. Movie portrayals have included, for example, Suspiria, Rosemary's Baby, The Covenant, Underworld and Underworld: Evolution, The Craft, Coven and Paranormal Activity 3. In television, covens were portrayed in the U.S. supernatural drama Charmed and the HBO series True Blood.
In novels such as The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice and the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, covens are families or unrelated groups of vampires who live together.
Read more about this topic: Coven
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—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
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