He loved the twilight that surrounds
The border-land of old romance;
Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance,
And banner waves, and trumpet sounds,
And ladies ride with hawk on wrist,
And mighty warriors sweep along,
Magnified by the purple mist,
The dusk of centuries and of song.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn

My entire life, I've always been a dreamer of fantasy, right up to the current day. And as long as I can remember, I've always been... well, I've never liked the term hopeless romantic; there's something defeatist about the term hopeless which always struck a wrong note with me. I like far better the descriptor a friend of mine once coined as a defiant romantic. Someone who knows exactly what the cynics say about things like friendship and loyalty, hope and kindness, trust and true love -- and heeds them not. Even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them.

A book-fired imagination and a recklessly defiant romanticism -- the two combined in an self-reenforcing storm which had profound effects on the course of my life, encouraged and aided by a close, loving family, marvelous friends of like mind. I'm not by chosen career an actor, a performer, a poet. But all those things are where my passions lie -- I love the stage, I love the performance, the assuming of roles and the playing of parts. I love the whole invitation to others -- to the audience, to one's fellow players -- to join in a collective dream, the collective story. I'm at heart a storyteller, a tale-spinner, a dreamer of the day -- someone who has always found irresistable Shel Silverstein's invitation. (So much so it forms the front page of my personal (vs. academic) homepage. :-) )

So, here I was, someone marvelously in love with fantasy and imagination and stagecraft and acting. Mind afire with wild visions of ages long ago that never were and stories that begin Once upon a time. The quotation that Longfellow first penned with which I opened this story described me to a perfect point almost from the time I could first read and dream. And so it was inevitable that I'd eventually find my way to the marvelous community of shared living fantasy -- the Ren Faire circuit, the SCA, Markland, Adria, whathaveyou. All it would take is the time to dive headlong into it and folks to show me the way. That part only took, oh, twenty years. ;-)

I had never even *heard* of any of the above -- Ren Faires, the interlocking medieval recreation societies, any of it -- through all the years of high school, college, and early medical school. In thinking back on it, I'm actually rather surprised I never heard a whisper during my time in college. My undergraduate Science and Engineering house, packed as it was with dreamers and proud geeks on the northern end of campus, surely would have been fertile ground for SCAdian recruiters, even if the neighboring frat houses would not. (For all I know, the whole SCA/Rennie axis might have been heavily active on the southern end of campus, where the artists, theatre, and history majors lived and studied amongst honest-to-god stone-gothic architecture.) It wasn't until I had begun my research sabbatical from the medical school that things began to unfold and the true heart of this happy tale begins...


It was the high summer of the year 2000, and friends had come up to Ann Arbor for the first time for the merry adventures. And during that weekend of mischief and merriment, there was a pivotal conversation, where from one of my close friends, I for the first time heard tales of the SCA.

He told me about the fighters and Crown List; he told me about the singers and the bards; he told me about revels and feasts and Pennsic, the great War of Wars. He shared the lyrics of "Born on the Listfield." Before that day I had no idea such a thing existed; unsurprising, given the single-minded focus that had been my life from the time I landed in Chicago for my first day of college to the first day of my research sabattical five years later. But what he described was something that just completely seized my imagination, as we wandered up East Liberty and down South University and among the brick archways of East and West Halls and up the Quad.

At left, Constantine Blackhart, Aethelmearc Thrown Weapons Champion. At right: with Constantine at Maryland Renaissance Festival, three years later;

Constantine Treesbane was the first, but by no means the last. William, a fellow MD/PhD and medical activist friend regaled me with tales from Quest, a living fantasy production and troupe with which many merry adventures he had had. Ceara ni Brid of Calontir as well added her own persistent encouragement and her own tales of Calontir, over many nights on ICQ. The green in my arms is for Ceara, in gratitude for all her enthusiastic encouragement; the chevron of green, traditional academic heraldry of a physican, is borne in Will's honor as well. And with the three of them -- and another friend, Anlon of Athelmearc, who ultimately gave me my first garb -- gently beckoning me into the world of living fantasy, it was finally Morwen of Markland's Thrir Venstri Foetr who with a smile took me by the hand and led me in, one late May evening in Maryland...

At left: with Constantine (f. left), Morwen (2nd from right), and a dashing Rogue at Maryland Renaissance Faire, 2003; at right, dancing with Morwen at Thrir Venstri Foetr

That first evening was spent primarily in English dance and music making, including their kindly taking me my horrifically uncoordinated self through several different dance steps. In between dances I had the chance to chat with many of the other very friendly and welcoming folks of Three Left Feet. That evening in the basement of the U. Maryland Armory was my very first exposure to Medieval dance, and it captured my imagination. While heavy armored fighting or fencing or camping were things that required a lot of investment of equipment and money, dancing seemed like something I could do right away. All of a sudden, medieval recreation was something that might be practically possible -- and *lots* of fun.

I returned from Washington DC inspired and afire -- many had been encouraging me to follow the sound of the pipes and the laughter, and all I had to do was find a niche for myself within it, something I could practically actually do. Now I had one. I was all driven and determined to find a place to pursue the Dream locally -- again, not realizing that I was smack in the middle of the Barony of Cynnabar. I was, in fact, literally upstairs and downstairs of two very active members of Cynnabar. Vicerinne Siubhan worked in the research laboratory right literally underneath mine. And right upstairs was Lady Magda Vogelsang...

At left: Magda (middle) and I in her laboratory; at right: Magda (at right) and our dancemistress Alina of Foxwood (at left) at the Chelsea Celtic Festival

I went upstairs that pivotal day to learn how to use the QT-PCR machine, of which Magda was in charge. Of course, as soon as I met her and saw the Pennsic t-shirt she was wearing, the conversation immediately shifted gears. I did, in fact, eventually learn how to use the QT-PCR machine -- the data I would get from it would form the backbone of my thesis, and Magda's help all along the way would be an invaluable part of that -- but I will admit most of our long conversation that *first* day didn't have anything to do at all with science. It was entirely obvious just what kind of marvelous place Cynnabar was from the tale after tale Magda regaled me with that late summer afternoon, and many other times I would come up in the weeks after.

Early one autumn afternoon after that, I happened to be crossing the Quad during the activity fair, and encountered the Festifall booth manned by the engarbed Aksham and Lady Elsa von Heilbronn, and from them picked up a ticket to the Dream. That subsequent Monday evening, I would drop into a seat in the Michigan Union, and the journey began in ernest.

The rest... is a very happy tale, which continues to this very day. :-)