Sebastian Lockwood has narrated 8 audiobooks on Listento.it by 6 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is The Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Summary
A new version of The Epic of Gilgamesh by Sebastian Lockwood. This is the story of Gilgamesh, King of Kings, who brought back knowledge from before the flood - who loved and lost his companion Enkidu and had to find out why we die. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written on clay tablets over 4,000 years ago, in what is today Baghdad Iraq - the Biblical Garden of Eden between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Having performed the story for years, Lockwood gives a passionate reading from a text that faithfully follows the original.
©2012 Sebastian Lockwood (P)2012 Sebastian Lockwood
The Arabian Nights: The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Seaman
Summary
Here are the "Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Seaman" from The Thousand and One Nights. These tales are told with a rare beauty, rhyme, and rhythm. Richard Burton's translation catches the epic beauty in his unique style. It takes time to get used to Burton's prose poetry, but once you do, the reward is as deep as Shaharazad's story. As a storyteller, it was a joy to narrate these tales and bring the music of the work to life.
Public Domain (P)2017 Sebastian Lockwood
The Briton and the Dane: Concordia
Summary
Travel back in time to late ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Britain, where Alfred the Great rules with a benevolent hand while the Danish king rules peacefully within the boundaries of the Danelaw. Trade flourishes, and scholars from throughout the civilized world flock to Britannia's shores to study at the King's Court School at Winchester. Enter Concordia, a beautiful noblewoman whose family is favored by the king. Vain, willful, and admired but ambitious and cunning, Concordia is not willing to accept her fate. She is betrothed to the valiant warrior Brantson but sees herself as far too young to lie in the bedchamber of an older suitor. She wants to see the wonders of the world, embracing everything in it - preferably, but dangerously, at the side of Thayer, the exotic Saracen who charms King Alfred's court and ignites her yearning passions. Concordia manipulates her besotted husband into taking her to Rome, but her ship is captured by bloodthirsty pirates, and the seafarers protecting her are ruthlessly slain to a man. As she awaits her fate in the Moorish captain's bed, by sheer chance she discovers that salvation is at hand in the gilded court of a Saracen nobleman. While awaiting rescue, Concordia finds herself at the center of intrigue, plots, blackmail, betrayal, and the vain desires of two egotistical brothers, each willing to die for her favor. Using only feminine cunning, Concordia must defend her honor while plotting her escape as she awaits deliverance somewhere inside steamy, unconquered Muslim Hispania.
©2013 Mary Ann Bernal (P)2016 Mary Ann Bernal
Homer's Odyssey: A Storyteller's Version
Summary
We begin with Book V, Odysseus weeping on Calyspo's Island, and follow his adventures through to his return to Ithaca and Penelope. This version of Homer's Odyssey was created over a 14-year period of performing the great epic. When it came time to record this version for audiobook, I realized there was no text: It lived in memory. So I had to write out a 38-page poem from memory. Then I used that text as a performance script and while reading it found myself constantly editing as my spoken word insisted on changes that sharpened the sound. The result is this text of the telling. Those who know the story well may question language and detail choices, moments of invention; but these were all dictated in performance. My hope is that this short storytellers' version will take audiences back into a new love and delight in the original.
©2014 Sebastian Lockwood/Nanewtte Perrotte (P)2014 Sebstian Lockwood
The Briton and the Dane: Legacy (Second Edition)
Summary
Whispered by the wise and the learned. Talked of in hushed tones around luminous firesides. Engraved by awestruck scribes in the scriptoria of the chronicles. Against all the odds, great King Alfred defeated a vastly superior Danish army outside Chippenham. This victory, the sages prophesied, would guarantee peace throughout the land. Or so they thought. Two years later, Rigr the Bastard, vengeful and seeking to claim his birthright, was defeated in the wilds of East Anglia. His blood-smeared berserker warriors vanquished; no quarter asked for - no quarter given. Now, a further two years later, the Vikings return. Noble Prince Sven instigates a seaborne invasion, fueled partly by blind rage when he discovers that his brother, Prince Erik, has sworn fealty to the Anglo-Saxon king. His own brother: a traitor and a fool. Erik’s love, Lady Gwyneth, attempts to stop the invasion before it starts by uniting the two estranged brothers, but her scheming only succeeds in making matters worse. Indeed, her interference guarantees the death of thousands of warriors in the freezing, tumultuous North Sea. So when the horns of Sven’s monumental fleet of warships are heard off the fogbound coast of Britannia, King Alfred - outnumbered, outshipped, and weary of the fray - must rouse his jaded Saxon warriors and lead them to sea to repel his most formidable enemy yet. A host motivated by the spilled blood of the fallen, the spirit of black vengeance, and the delights of a warrior’s reward in Valhalla is the most fearsome opponent of all. Alfred. Sven. Erik. Gwyneth. Amidst the ferrous reverberation of a battle royale - one or all must die, and the fate of a nation hangs in the balance one final time.
©2013 Mary Ann Bernal (P)2018 Mary Ann Bernal
Beowulf: A Performance Translation
Summary
This is a dynamic performance by Sebastian Lockwood of the great poem using a new translation by Clark and Lockwood. This single inherited epic in our language has it all: drama, blood, heroism, mourning, and teaching with soul-searching thought about all this. It looks back. In its top layer of listening, we are brought along with heroic figures, even with a superhero, to challenge agonizing monsters. This world also includes beautiful sea voyages, crafty disputes, the falling of tribes, and moving elegies. Most often its Old English poetry can translate directly into fresh pictures. The epic Beowulf is a masterfully told story. Beowulf also steadily gives insight on its listening audience during a momentous time of transitions, in England between the eighth and 11th century. The courts of Beowulf teem with signs of deadly intrigues to come, hubris, cowardice, the betrayal of good leaders. Pagan Wyrd and Christian God are both at work here. In early Christian England, the people, including monastics, still loved to tell and hear those ancient oral heroic - and pagan - teaching-stories. This epic is unique in that it bridges the ethical gap.
©2017 Sebastian Lockwood (P)2017 Sebastian Lockwood
Birthright (Second Edition)
Summary
Two years have passed since Alfred the Great successfully defeated Guthrum, King of the Vikings. The fair land of England is at peace. That is, until the harmony is threatened by Guthrum's angry, vengeful, illegitimate son, Rigr, who is hell-bent on usurping his father's throne. Rigr demands his Birthright - an acknowledgement that he is the sole heir to the Danelaw, but his father refuses his claim. Rigr assembles his army; a motley, but formidable, cohort of disenchanted warriors. Fearsome Guthrum, ruler of everything from Kent to Northumbria, is made aware of the threat and conjures his forces, meeting the rebellious host on the field at Thetford. Thousands upon thousands of bloodthirsty warriors confront each other on the sunlit, windless plains of East Anglia. The victors will rewrite the course of history, and the fate of England is in the hands of the gods of war.
©2011, 2013 Mary Ann Bernal (P)2016 Mary Ann Bernal
The Children of the New Forest
Summary
The Roundheads under Cromwell and the Cavaliers under Charles I, have fought a bloody Civil War: the defeated King has escaped south towards the New Forest. The Parliamentry troops believe he will hide in the home of Colonel Beverly, a famous Cavalier - they surround the house believeing they will smoke him out. No King is found and they are told that they have killed the four children who were in the house - but they escape with the old forester, Jacob Armitage, who must now teach them to lose their lace, and velvet manners and behave and look like Puritans. He must also teach them how to hunt, farm and survive in the magnifiecent New Forest, first laid out by William the Conquerer. Edward, the oldest, Humphrey and their sisters, Alice and Edith will find a new life, and for Edward, new love with the Superintendents' daughter, Patience Heatherstone. Captain Marryat tells this story with loving attention to the details of living in the forest and to History where the balance between King and Parliament has changed forever.
Public Domain (P)2013 Lumen Arts