The Goddess Sabrina: What Lies Beneath

Long before Shrewsbury had a name, it had a river. And long before the river had a name, it had a story.

This is it.

*

In a time when history and myth walked hand in hand, King Locrin ruled the Britons. Though he had married young, and his first wife, Gwendolen, had given him daughters, power and wealth, it was his second wife, Estrildis, who held his heart. And it was their only daughter, Sabrina, who became the light of his kingdom. She was beloved by all.

And as for Gwendolen, the girl he had been married to as a boy and grown with, welcomed his first children with, learned to rule beside? Poor, faithful Gwendolen had been cast aside.

She hated Estrildis for taking her place. She hated Locrin for letting it happen. And, perhaps less fairly, she hated Sabrina - young, beloved Sabrina, gracious and bright - because while the girl lived, Gwendolen's own daughters would always stand in her shadow.

It wouldn't do.

So she called on her brother, raised an army, and lay siege to Locrin's lands.

Locrin fought to defend what was his - his kingdom, his wife, his daughter. But Gwendolen's forces were stronger and her army larger, and they did not stop until everything that had been the king's was hers.

But when the king was dead, and all his riches belonged to Gwendolen, she wasn't quite satisfied.

It wasn't enough.

There was one brutal act of vengeance yet to take.

She ordered that Sabrina and her mother be brought to the river that wound through Locrin's land - the deep, cold river you can see from where you're standing now - and drowned.

The people begged her. Her soldiers' faces grew grim at the task ahead. But she would hear nothing of mercy.

Before the mourning crowd and the cold gaze of the queen, both mother and daughter were bound, weighted with rocks, and given to the water.

*

In the wake of a tragedy so cruel, people often reach for ways to make meaning.

The people of this land chose not to let Sabrina be forgotten. They gave the river her name - Sabrina, softened over centuries into Severn - and in doing so, they made her eternal.

A princess became a goddess. A tragedy gave its name to a river. And that river is the longest in Britain, winding all the way to the sea.

Today, she's everywhere. Her river cradles Shrewsbury in a great loop, holding the town safe. You'll find her in the Dingle, in poetry, in art - and in the painting on the box you're looking at right now.

So, next time you walk beside the Severn, spare a thought for Sabrina. She never left.