Overview: Within the flow of the Severn, Britain’s longest river, resides a Goddess who, for millennia, has governed the cyclical nature of life and death in mythic and subtle ways.

Whether known as Sabrina to the English or Hafren to the Welsh, this book is an invitation to dive deep into the currents of time to explore her identity and power.

Verdict: From the age of the Celts to the tragedies woven together by the medieval clerics, right up to the modern day, this book illuminates an ever-evolving, powerful divinity associated with boundaries, transformation, and magical Salmon.

Combining personal insight, lore, academic research, and exercises to connect to her waters, within these pages of Pagan Portals - Sabrina: Discovering the Goddess of the River Severn from author Brett Hollyhead we traverse the historical tales of a Goddess who is the heart and soul of the landscape.

Stories such as this have always been a family fascination, in truth, and this is one that I myself grew up well aware of. But, for those unaware, the goddess of the River Severn is known as Sabrina in English, and Hafren in Welsh. The name Sabrina was given to the river by the Romans, and it is believed the river was named after a nymph who was thrown into the river and drowned.

Dating back to at least the 2nd century AD, when the name Sabrina was first recorded by the Romans, in Welsh, Afon Hafren is the full local name for the River Severn. Indeed, it is also one of Britain’s most beloved rivers whose name was one of the first recorded back then as the aforementioned Sabrina, a Latinized version of an earlier Celtic name thought by some scholars to be Samarosina [meaning land of summertime fallow].

As the author tells us within the pages of this thoroughly engrossing new prose on this Goddess, tracing back to the roots of the tale, the story of the goddess Sabrina and the River Severn is fundamentally a story about a woman that is given to the river and becomes a part of it through time.

Thus he brings forth within this diligently written, and profoundly impassioned new book, the historically known facts along with the more freely renounced lore, all whilst deep diving into who she was, where she came from, and what it all means to us currently living here today - and yet also manages to suggest practical exercises for actually working with the historical deity and the region itself today.

About the Author - Brett Hollyhead, also known as the Witch of Salopia across social media, is a practicing Welsh Marches Folk Witch, workshop leader and a public speaker at regular Pagan related events/ conferences throughout the United Kingdom. He’s a member of the Cylch y Sarffes Goch Coven (Circle of the Red Serpent) alongside Mhara Starling and Moss Matthey. He’s also a member of OBOD and a guardian of the Doreen Valiente Foundation. He lives in Wrexham, UK.

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