Cofgod

{{Short description|Household god in Anglo-Saxon paganism}}

'Cofgod' (plural Cofgodas ("cove-gods")) was an Old English term for a household god{{cite book|author=Joseph Bosworth|title=A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YIALAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA80|year=1838|publisher=Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman|page=80}} in Anglo-Saxon paganism.

The classicist Ken Dowden opined that the cofgodas were the equivalent of the Penates found in Ancient Rome.{{cite book |title=European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages |last=Dowden |first=Ken |year=2000 |publisher=Routledge |location=London and New York |isbn=0-415-12034-9 |page=229}} Dowden also compared them to the Kobold of later continental folklore, arguing that they had both originated from the kofewalt, a spirit that had power over a room. If it is true that such beings were known to the early English, later legendary beings such as the English hob and Anglo-Celtic brownie would be the modern survival of the cofgod."Cove-Gods", An Other Dictionary. However, the only instance of the word cofgodas in Old English is as a gloss (an explanatory definition) to the Latin word penates.Dictionary of Old English Corpus s.v. cofgodas.