A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven.
The word was originally a late medieval Scots word (circa 1500) meaning a gathering of any kind, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It derives from the Latin root word convenire meaning to come together or to gather, which also gave rise to the English word convene. The first recorded use of it being applied to witches comes much later, from 1662 in the witch-trial of Isobel Gowdie, which describes a coven of 13 members.
The word coven remained largely unused in English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promoted the idea, now much disputed, that all witches across Europe met in groups of thirteen which they called 'covens'.
Marie Laveau (September 10, 1782 – June 16, 1881) was a Louisiana Creole practitioner of Voodoo renown in New Orleans. She was born free in New Orleans.
Her daughter Marie Laveau II (1827 — c. 1895) also practiced Voudoun, and historical accounts often confuse the two. She and her mother had great influence over their multiracial following. "In 1874 as many as twelve thousand spectators, both black and white, swarmed to the shores of Lake Pontchartrain to catch a glimpse of Marie Laveau II performing her legendary rites on St. John's Eve (June 23–24)."
Marie was believed to have been born free in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, about 1794, the daughter of a white planter and a free Creole woman of color. On August 4, 1819, she married Jacques (or Santiago, in other records) Paris, a free person of color who had emigrated from Haiti. Their marriage certificate is preserved in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The marriage mass was performed by Father Antonio de Sedella, the Capuchin priest known as Pere Antoine.
Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums. She has been noted for her ethereal visual style and symbolic lyrics. Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac on December 31, 1974, along with her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. Fleetwood Mac's second album after the incorporation of Nicks and Buckingham, 1977's Rumours, produced four US Top 10 singles (including Nicks's song "Dreams", which was the band's first and only US number one) and remained at No.1 on the American albums chart for 31 weeks, as well as reaching the top spot in various countries around the world. To date the album has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it the eighth best-selling album of all time.
Nicks began her solo career in 1981 with the 8 million selling album Bella Donna, and she has produced six more solo studio albums to date. Her seventh solo studio album entitled In Your Dreams, and her first in ten years, was produced largely by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame and Glen Ballard and was released on May 3, 2011. After the release of her first solo album, Rolling Stone deemed her "The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll". Having overcome cocaine addiction, and dependency on tranquilizers, Nicks remains a popular solo performer. As a solo artist, she has garnered eight Grammy Award nominations and, with Fleetwood Mac, a further five, of which one was the 1978 award for Album of the Year for Rumours, which they won. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Nicks is known for her distintive voice, mystical visual style and symbolic lyrics as well as the famous (sometimes tense) chemistry between herself and former boyfriend and guitarist/vocalist in Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham.
Coven: Hello to all my fans and freaks! You have brought me back because you crave change, in this so called natural order. My children, be the freaks that you are, for soon enough we shall be kings among scum!