This week I am cheating by having another look at a creature already covered on the blog that accompanies the podcast. A very long time ago. we created some introductory material for Ars Magica called the Covenant of Sabrina’s Rest.
Sabrina’s Rest is named after the goddess of the River Severn. As source material I was using a historian’s account of a poem which only contained a tiny amount of the original. I’m going to restat Sabrina having discovered the poem on which she’s based. It’s by Milton, and in the recording that follows it’s been read into the public domain by three readers from LibriVox.
You’ll notice that Sabrina involuntarily undergoes Becoming – that is she becomes a faerie – using a procedure that magi might follow, if they wished. After this she becomes a sort of folk saint as well, she defends maidens and she breaks spells. The early version had her as a relatively normal water nymph: clearly she needs a little bit of extra work.
Spirit:
What! have you let the false enchanter scape?
O ye mistook; ye should have snatched his wand,
And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,
We cannot free the Lady that sits here
In stony fetters fixed and motionless.
Yet stay: be not disturbed; now I bethink me,
Some other means I have which may be used,
Which once of Melibœus old I learnt,
The soothest shepherd that e’er piped on plains.
There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream:
Sabrina is her name: a virgin pure;
Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enragéd stepdame, Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood
That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played,
Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in,
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus’ hall;
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve
Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,
Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs
That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make,
Which she with precious vialed liquors heals:
For which the shepherds, at their festivals,
Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays,
And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream
Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils.
And, as the old swain said, she can unlock
The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell,
If she be right invoked in warbled song;
For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift
To aid a virgin, such as was herself,
In hard-besetting need. This will I try,
And add the power of some adjuring verse.
Song
Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour’s sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save!
Listen, and appear to us,
In name of great Oceanus.
By the earth-shaking Neptune’s mace,
And Tethys’ grave majestic pace;
By hoary Nereus’ wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard’s hook;
By scaly Triton’s winding shell,
And old soothsaying Glaucus’ spell;
By Leucothea’s lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands;
By Thetis’ tinsel-slippered feet,
And the songs of Sirens sweet;
By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb,
And fair Ligea’s golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;
By all the Nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance;
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head
From thy coral-paven bed,
And bridle in thy headlong wave,
Till thou our summons answered have.
Listen and save!
Sabrina rises, attended by Water-nymphs, and sings.
By the rushy-fringéd bank,
Where grows the willow and the osier dank,
My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen
Of turkis blue, and emerald green,
That in the channel strays;
Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O’er the cowslip’s velvet head,
That bends not as I tread.
Gentle swain, at thy request
I am here!
Spirit. Goddess dear,
We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charméd band
Of true virgin here distressed
Through the force and through the wile
Of unblessed enchanter vile.
Sabrina. Shepherd, ’tis my office best
To help ensnared chastity.
Brightest Lady, look on me.
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops that from my fountain pure
I have kept of precious cure;
Thrice upon thy finger’s tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip:
Next this marble venomed seat,
Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,
I touch with chaste palms moist and cold.
Now the spell hath lost his hold;
And I must haste ere morning hour
To wait in Amphitrite’s bower.
Sabrina descends, and the Lady rises out of her seat.
When the singer is calling up Sabrina he mentions various sea gods. In amongst them all he mentions the “Carpathian Wizard’s crook”. The Carpathian Wizards are House Tremere. What are they doing here?
Strangely enough there are two homophonic terms in English – Carpathian meaning from the Carpathian Mountains and Carpathian meaning from Carpathos, which is an island in Greece. Or at least it was: it’s now called Scarpanto. The wizard who comes from Carpathos, and who is often represented as having a hook, was called Proteus.
Proteus was a sea god. His fluidity allowed him to change into any shape he wished and although he could predict the future he didn’t like doing so, and would only give prophecies to someone who was able to overcome his habit of shifting into multiple shapes to flee.
Milton brings up Proteus again in Paradise Lost, where his ability to change his nature and form gives him some sort of link to the Philosopher’s Stone to the idea that you could internally purify yourself to become immortal. Shakespeare also mentions Proteus. Richard the Third uses him as a model of being able to take on a new shape or form to deceive other people. He compares himself to Proteus and to a chameleon, so he’s a master of Muto magic.
Statistics
The easiest way to design Sabrina is as a White Lady, which is a sort of Breton water faerie. The most powerful are the Ladies of the Lake, in the Lancelot Cycle.
Faerie Might: 40+10 (Aquam)
Characteristics: Int +4, Per 0, Pre+4, Com+3, Str +2, Sta +2, Dex 0, Qik +1
Size: 0
Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Focus Power, 3 x Greater Faerie Powers, Highly Cognizant, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, 2 x Great Characteristic, Human Form, 6 x Improved Characteristics, 7 x Increased Faerie Might, 2 x Personal Faerie Powers, Place of Power (river and banks); Traditional Ward (The Dominion)
Personality Traits: Favours children and women suffering oppression +2
Combat:
Brawl (fist): Init +1, Attack +1, Defense +2, Damage +2
Uses magical effects rather than weapons.
Soak: +2
Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
Pretenses: (Area) Lore 6 (sites of historic significance or power), Artes Liberales 3 (history), Animal Handling 2 (seabirds), Athletics 6 (dance), Awareness 2 (humans), Bargain 7 (magi), Brawl 1 (escaping), Carouse
6 (dancing), Charm 6 (children), Concentration 3 (humans), Craft:
(weaver) 6 (repair), Etiquette 7 (courtly), Faerie Speech 6, Finesse 6 (Rego), Folk Ken 3 (customs of surrounding area), Guile 2 (men), Intrigue 4 (against abusers), Leadership 6 (in warfare), Order of Hermes Lore 5 (conflicts), Penetration 6 (using Arcane Connections), Swim 9 (home waters).
Powers:
Break Curses: 5 points, Init –4, Vim: (R: Eye / T: Ind / D: Mom.)
Destroys minor charms.
(Perdo Vim 20, +5 Eye.)
Extended Glamor: 0 points, constant,
Focus Power (Water within her realm): up to 10 points, Init –9, Aquam.
Can kill with versions of Ice of Drowning, Mighty Torrent of Water, Pull of the Watery Grave, and Tower of Whirling Water using this power. Note that in character creation, the same focus power has been selected twice to gain this higher level.
Touch of the Mermaid: 3 points, Init –2, Aquam: Kiss of the Mermaid, for characters too regal to kiss a magus for ease of transport.
Torrent from the Lungs: 3 points, Init –2, Aquam.
Transform into Current: 2 points, Init –4, Aquam: (Until Duration) (3 intricacy points to reduce cost)
Transform Victim into Seagull: 2 points, Init –3, Animal. (2 intricacy
points to reduce cost)
Equipment: A small kingdom of faerie servants. Mystical artifacts which include a scrying pool (see ArM5 page 122 for a spell that simulates this device). Centuries of lost treasure, including a chariot. Clothed in white wool, with flowers in her long hair.
Vis: 8 pawns Rego, a hair comb, +2 if in kingdom
Appearance: A beautiful woman with long hair eyes, in a robe of the finest wool. Oddly, her feet do not touch the ground – they do not bend plants as she walks the shore.
Games From Folktales 