Ragnarsdatter Published in 2001. Available from http://www.xlibris.com/RichardLoomis.html
Gloria Ragnarsdatter belongs to the junior high underworld of her midwestern hometown. It is 1939. Sex takes her mind off the tedium of school. Then she finds a new kind of boyfriend. A CD Audiobook recording of Ragnarsdatter is now available from http://cdbaby.com/cd/rmloomis2 The readers include Gerald Godwin, Kathleen Godwin, Brother James Miller, CSC, Rebecca Schmitt, Sean McKeown, Dave Reynolds.
An excerpt: Bart Savage was cast as the evil Manfred Devereux. He'd just been accepted for the high school baseball team, and he practiced his role in the play like he did exercises on the field, energetically striding, stretching, jumping, swinging, bending his torso into readiness for anything. He had trouble not laughing his way through the play, especially when he was lording it over white students in black-face who looked like they were doing a minstrel show. Mr. Oliver didn't like his excess of spirit and cautioned him to tone it down. Billy, on the other hand, did his role exactly as coached, giving a straight reading to lines even Alfred Ragnarsdatter would think were corny. Gloria took her cue from Bart Savage rather than Billy Holdback and threw herself into being Maud with so much screeching and wheeling and crouching and lurking that the whole company got a kick out of watching her. Mr. Oliver didn't tone her down at all, and the cast relished the extravaganza. Word got around that this was a performance not to be missed.
-- Ragnarsdatter, p. 131 
Mary and Mario share a summer afternoon. | The Song of Giraldus Published in 2000. Available from http://www.xlibris.com/RichardLoomis.html
Giraldus de Barri is an acclaimed author and knows it. He aspires to be bishop of St. David's in Wales, but the Angevin monarchs of England don't want a Welsh nationalist in that chair. Giraldus tells the world all about it, and more. CD at http://cdbaby.com/cd/rmloomis3
An excerpt: At Chalus in the Limousin, the castle belonging to the viscount of Limoges resisted. It was said the lord of the castle claimed rights to local treasure superior to the king's rights, and by King Richard's unrelenting logic, the fortress had to be reduced, just as Prince John's castle at Nottingham had been reduced, to make clear that this was land owing feudal service to King Richard of England. The king fought valiantly in the field as he was pleased to do, and on the evening of the third day of the siege he went out with no more protection than a headpiece and a small shield, to inspect the defenses of the almost won castle. He saw a lone crossbowman on the parapet using a mere pan as a shield, and he admired the man's tenacity and courage in staying at his post to continue the fight. The crossbow is a devilish modern weapon the church has tried to outlaw, and Richard had been blamed for introducing it into France. While he was gazing at the parapet, Richard was hit by a bolt shot by the lone crossbowman.
-- The Song of Giraldus, p. 75
Print friendly version | Medieval Welsh Poems: An Anthology
Translations by Richard Loomis and Dafydd Johnston. 111 poems, with commentary, maps, pronunciation guide. Illustrations by Mary Loomis. Published in 1992. Order from Pegasus Press, 101 Booter Road, Fairview, NC 28730 www.pegpress.org
An excerpt: Lovely was the kitchen-service while I was sick from the trouble in my knee. Eight kinds of mead came with food, eight dishes more were furnished. Eight kinds of sauce, eight burning ash-trees, eight wines and delicacies. There wasn't an orange or a pear, not fruit of plant or tree, there was no fresh crop from the orchard nor nuts on trees that I didn't have a share. Lady Mawddwy's good nature wants the old to live longer.
--Guto Glyn, in praise of Lady Jane Burrough of Mawddwy, p. 163
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