Tivar on ThinkWell list in October 2006:

I'm Tivar Moondragon. I'm from Ansteorra and have been here since it was part of Atenveldt (31 years, come Thanksgiving.) I was one of the early contributors to the hardcopy version of ThinkWell. My main focus is all aspects of rapier fighting; I also do armored combat marshalling and dabble in costuming, leather- and metalworking.

Don Tivar is and was the first White Scarf in all of the Society, a Master of the Pelican and a Baron of the Court. He resides in the Barony of Bryn Gwlad (Austin), in Ansteorra. There is a personal page but not lots of biography: http://home.austin.rr.com/moondragon/SCA.html

Anyone who'd like to add stories or a whole bio, please write! "Dear AElflaed..."

Well, it all started when I had just found the SCA (1977) and was dragged to the Texas Renaissance Festival by some friends. They pointed out a few people, but the only person who stuck in my mind and memory was a tall lord in black and red. He carried himself as if he was eight feet tall (he's only six), and when his name was pronounced, I envisioned it written in gold and inlay: TIVAR.

A few years later (1980) my Baroness informed me—politely, of course—that our Barony would be hosting the Queen's Champion Tournament in conjunction with the Baronial Court of which I was in charge. But don't worry—TIVAR will be handling the tournament part. PANIC!>

We exchanged a few phone calls (but that isn't really meeting a person), and we saw each other across the tournament field from time to time that day. To my chagrin, the person who was fighting for me in that tournament was the person who dealt TIVAR a blow to the face which caused a real injury. OH MY GOSH!

The event went well anyway, and the very next weekend was a "war" between two baronies. I was shepherding a group of pages (fourteen to sixteen years old). On Saturday morning, the 20th of September, I found myself face to face with TIVAR. Fortunately, there were other people present, or I might have fainted dead away. After my heart came back down the 2000 feet it had jumped up, he said something to the effect of "Do you want to come over to _my_ tent tonight?", and we managed to strike up a conversation which lasted well into the wee hours of the morning (with occasional pauses for him to go marshall the fighting during the day).

We continued the conversation over the phone for the next several months, with time out for bus trips between Houston and Austin (he lived in one, I in the other). He moved to Austin in the following May (1981). A year later to the day (May 20th), he proposed. (Mushrooms of the edible kind are a wonderful persuader.) If he hadn't said anything by the time we had finished dinner, I was going to! We were married on the 2nd anniversary of the day we really met, the 20th of September, 1982 (which happened to be a Monday, but we didn't care).

Is that sufficiently romantic for you guys? (It's the truth, by the way.)

Aethelyan of Moondragon