| Luna Ragnall | |
|---|---|
 Luna Ragnall as she appeared in her past life as Amada | |
|
Real Name |
Luna Ragnall (née Luna Holmes) |
|
First Appearance |
The Ivory Child (1916) |
|
Original Publisher |
Cassell (UK)/Longmans Green (US) |
|
Created by |
H. Rider Haggard |
Origin[]
Wi and Laleela the stone age ancestors/past lives of Allan and Luna respectively.
Lady Luna Ragnall (née Luna Holmes) is married to Lord George Ragnall, an aristocratic Englishman. She is mentioned in The Holy Flower but first appears in The Ivory Child. She has clairvoyant abilities, and has from childhood felt a strange connexion to Egypt. She is a reincarnation of the Lady Amada, an ancient Egyptian noblewoman. On her breast is a mark in the shape of a crescent moon, and this symbol leads Harût to take her to Kendahland. For some years she stays there as an oracle, and loses all memory of her life beforehand; but at the end of The Ivory Child her memory is brought back to her.
In The Ancient Allan she and Quatermain take the Taduki drug and witness some of their previous lives. Thus, Quatermain relives the experiences of ancient Egyptian aristocrat Shabaka (a descendant of the pharaoh of the same name)—alongside flashes of his earlier lives—and Ragnall those of Amada, an ancient priestess of Isis; several other characters of the Quatermain novels, such as the Hottentot Hans, Lord George Ragnall, the wizard Harût, and the elephant-god Jana, also appear under various guises. The Egypt of The Ancient Allan is under the rule of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and much of the story is about a revolt against their domination.
Lady Ragnall appears for the final time in Allan and the Ice-Gods. In the story, Allan Quatermain, feeling awkward toward Lady Luna Ragnall after their recent taduki-induced vision in The Ancient Allan, in which they were nearly married, refuses three invitations from Lady Ragnall to return for another vision and has vowed never to use the drug again. Lady Ragnall herself informs Allan that she has used the taduki once more and discovered that their ancient counterparts, Amada and Shabaka, were indeed married.
Later, Allan reads in the newspaper that Lady Ragnall has traveled to Egypt for the winter. Six weeks or so later, Allan has a psychic experience and later learns that Lady Ragnall had died of heart failure at that moment at the site of her husband’s grave in the Temple of Isis. Allan inherits her estate, coveted by Lord Ragnall’s next-of-kin, Mr. Atterby-Smith. He distributes it to charities except for a box containing the taduki drug which Lady Ragnall had left him. Captain John Good is able to persuade Allan to use the drug and the two enter into their vision where Allan experiences the life of a Stone Age ancestor named Wi and meets Luna Ragnall's ancestor Laleela.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Luna Ragnall from before January 1, 1931 are public domain in the US.
Some notable appearances are listed below:
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- The Ivory Child (1916)
- Ancient Allan (1920)
- Allan & the Ice-Gods (1927)