Professor Thom Simmons speaks five languages, including Scottish Gaelic, and is a qualified translator for the Interpreter Corps of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. A graduate of Hofstra University and Hofstra Law School, he has also studied at the Colaisde na Gàidhlig in Nova Scotia and the Invermark School of Piping. A professor for over 25 years, he has spent much of his life researching his family's history and the folklore of Glenshee, Scotland, and is an active member of the Clan MacThomas Society. Though an American by birth, his summers were spent in a communal-style camp compound founded and operated by his Danish forebears for five generations, where storytelling, folk dancing, song, and impromptu plays filled the evenings. It was here that he learned the storyteller's art, and as an adult went on to thrill visitors at the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, serving as an interpretive guide recounting tales of pirates, shipwrecks, and ghostly apparitions at the Boston Lighthouse. He lives with his husband Dan in Chester, Vermont, where they operate Dungeon Dragon Farm, an organic homestead raising chickens, cayuga ducks, and honeybees, and producing walnut wood stain, honey, maple syrup, and dozens of varieties of vegetables, fruits, and berries. When not sampling single-malt Scotch whisky varieties, they enjoy their home-brewed mead, ales, and hard ciders. He is a practicing reconstructionist heathen, embracing both Norse and Gaelic polytheism.