Sabrina of the Severn

Sometimes Goddesses just come into being, and sometimes they reach out, grab you by the scruff of the neck and demand you pay attention.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Sabrina. Bogey and Hepburn are great, but it’s the remake with Julia Ormond that sweeps me away into a tale of transformation and love. There are many moments in the film that captivate me, including Harrison Ford looking completely lost and lovelorn towards the end, but the scene that stays with me, that i can repeat verbatim in my head, is the scene where she explains her name.

Julia Ormond’s character is named for the Goddess of the River Severn, a nymph that according to Milton saved a woman from “a fate worse than death.” Which is interesting, because the character in the movie does very much the same thing, though she looks ravishing rather than preventing ravishing. Milton’s story is recent though. Sabrina was the original name of the Severn, and was likely not even a personification until Geoffery of Monmouth. No, from what I can discover, Sabrina just spun out slowly from a Welsh word so old we don’t even know it’s meaning and has gathered gentle momentum over the centuries. She’s gradually gathering herself to herself.

Maybe she really is an old Goddess slowly coming back to life, but I get the impression she’s a Goddess in the process of becoming. I find that an exciting idea. Maybe she’s slowly building her mythos, slowly inspiring our imaginations and slowly building a following.

Or maybe I’m full of it. But in watching an old holiday special with mullet-rocking truck drivers, I heard the name Sabrina, and needed to write something about her.