The Firsts of Pern Trivia Quiz

Answer: Menolly

Menolly's story is detailed in the Harper Hall trilogy. Menolly is well-known on Pern for: first, writing the "Fire Lizard Song"; second, having a whole fair of fire lizards; third, being Masterharper Robinton's personal apprentice; fourth, being Masterharper Sebell's wife; and last but not the least, being the first female Harper in all of Pern.

As a young girl, Menolly was constantly punished for her interest in music, because "girls can't be harpers"! That certainly showed them!

Answer: Polenth

Green Zaranth is Tai's dragon and weyrmate to F'lessan's Golanth. Golden Ramoth, of course, is Weyrwoman Lessa's queen, and F'lar's bronze Mnementh is her weyrmate. David Catarel Impressed the first dragon to ever hatch on Pern. At that time, Dave was really depressed because he'd been severely Threadscored and he'd seen Lucy Tubberman devoured by Thread before his eyes. Polenth gave him a new reason to live.

Answer: Porth

Yes, it was Porth... I had to read Dragonsdawn very carefully to find that out! Porth was Impressed by Tarrie Chernoff. Apparently, Faranth was the last dragon to hatch, because she and bronze Carenath were from the very last and the best batch of Kitti Ping Yung's experiments. Faranth herself was very probably the zygote that Kitti Ping Yung was manipulating at her death, a sacrifice that was not wasted since Faranth became a legendary queen.

Answer: Ramoth

Weyrwoman Lessa's Ramoth has been dubbed the "biggest dragon on Pern", even bigger than her mate, bronze Mnementh. Ramoth is legendary for more than that, however: she was Pern's last hope because her mother Solth, the only queen dragon left alive, died before Ramoth was Hatched, and Ramoth was the only queen in Solth's last clutch. Ramoth was probably responsible for more than half of the new dragon population on Pern. Now that's a mother!

Answer: Carenath

Impressing their dragons set the young riders of the first dragons apart from the rest of the colonists. They found out that no one else could understand what it was like except their fellow dragonriders, especially as the other colonists began to get bothered by having the dragons around. So the dragonriders moved to a set of caves outside Landing, but the things they could do with their dragons were still restricted.

They could not even ride their dragons because supposedly they were still not ready, although there was really no basis for knowing if they were or were not ready since they were, after all, the first dragons. Sean Connell got fed up with all the restrictions.

After he took Carenath out to feed one day, he impulsively got on Carenath's back and asked his dragon to fly.

The rest, as they say, is part of Pern's history.

Answer: Duluth

Brown Duluth had been Impressed by Marco Galliani. At the time of Landing's evacuation during the volcanic eruption, Duluth, with Marco on his back, almost collided with a sled in midair, so he went between. Unfortunately, he didn't reappear, probably because he and Marco panicked. That was the first time that Pern heard the keening sound that dragons made when one of them died.

Answer: Sean Connell

Sorka is Sean's wife and Faranth's rider. Catherine is also one of the first queenriders, but she is more known for always falling into caves, the biggest of which was named for her. Nora is also one of the first queenriders. But yes, it was Sean on bronze Carenath who took the first ride between.

He was in a hurry to get to where he was going and forgot to specify to Carenath to fly straight, so Carenath instinctively took them, and the rest of the wing, between. The experience made all of them wet their pants!

Answer: Duke

Grall, F'nor's queen fire lizard, was the first one Impressed after a long, long time, and it made Kylara so mad because she hadn't been there. Beauty is of course Menolly's queen, and Rill is Grall's clutchmate, Impressed by G'sel. But Duke was Impressed by Sorka Hanrahan-Connell when she was just a child, way back during the colonization of Pern, and consequently is the first Impressed fire lizard.

Answer: Kitti Ping Yung

Somebody said, if only the fire lizards were bigger, they could keep Pern threadfree. Since Kitti Ping Yung had been one of the very, very few humans trained by the Eridani in genetic manipulation, she undertook to create the first dragons from fire lizard DNA . Kitti Ping Yung didn't live to see her creations hatch, but her experiments succeeded.

Answer: Wind Blossom Ping Yung

Though dragons refuse to welcome the whers into the family, the whers are really descended from the results of failed dragon experiments. After Kitti Ping Yung died, her granddaughter Wind Blossom undertook to carry on with the genetic experiments. Unfortunately, Wind Blossom's experiments failed: her creations did not Impress and were photophobic--- afraid of the light.

They were the ancestors of Pern's watchwhers, who obey only the members of the Bloodline of their particular Hold.

Answer: Ted Tubberman

Ted Tubberman was a botanist. His daughter Lucy died in the first Threadfall, which must have unhinged Ted terribly, so that he became a nuisance in the meetings, and finally even got "shunned" by the rest of the colony. Ted may have created the felines, the big cats that preyed on herdbeasts and even people, but he also created the grubs, which kept Southern Continent Threadfree!

Answer: Fort Hold

Fort Hold is the first Hold established on the Northern Continent. The Dragonriders were still at Seminole Bay when they learned that Thread was over Fort, so they took their dragons between, and to everyone's surprise, showed up at Fort to do what they had been born to do.

Answer: Ruatha Hold

Ruatha Hold was dubbed by Southern's Lord Toric as "a table-sized hold", because he didn't want his sister Sharra to marry Ruatha's Lord Jaxom. Which made Weyrwoman Lessa very angry, because she was of pure Ruathan Blood and she was very proud of Ruatha. Ruatha also produced many other queenriders, among them Talina of Monaco Bay; even Moreta, of the famous Ride, was said by some to have been Ruathan. And since according to the Anne McCaffrey website Ruatha was originally Red Hanrahan's Holding, and Red was the father of Faranth's rider Sorka Hanrahan-Connell, the first famous Weyrwoman, this tradition is well-justified as it seems to go way back to the founding of Pern. Of course, Ruatha also boasts a very unusual Lord Holder in Lord Jaxom.

Answer: Mirrim

Tai, F'lessan's mate, is a female green rider, but not the first one. Kylara was golden Prideth's rider, and Brekke rode golden Wirenth. Mirrim was Brekke's foster child, and one of Menolly's best friends. Not everybody liked Mirrim because she was always tactless and a busybody, but she immediately Impressed three fire lizards from the first clutch F'nor found on a Southern beach (Dragonquest). And later, while she was sitting in the tiers during a Hatching, a green hatchling refused to be Impressed by any of the candidates on the Hatching Ground and instead tried to climb up into the audience to get to Mirrim, so that F'lar and Lessa had to let Mirrim be the first female green rider (Dragondrums).

Answer: Tagetarl

The first time we see these four mentioned is in Dragonquest, when Masterharper Robinton is getting ready to go to the wedding at Telgar Hold. He sees three dragons coming to take him to the wedding: a green, a brown, and a bronze. Of course, he chooses the bronze, a Benden dragon, but to forestall any quarrels between the three dragonriders, he takes four of his apprentices along: Sebell, Talmor, Brudegan and Tagetarl.

In Dragonsinger, Sebell, Talmor and Brudegan are already journeymen; Sebell and Talmor are Menolly's friends and mentors, and Brudegan is the choirmaster who thought that the apprentices, especially Piemur, were playing a joke on him when he first heard Menolly's fire lizards singing a descant to the song they were practicing.

But Tagetarl is mentioned only in relation to Piemur, of whom it is said that he might have a voice as good as Tagetarl's. Tagetarl comes into his own in The Skies of Pern, when we find him not only a Masterharper but the first Masterprinter of the new Print Hall.

Answer: Readis

Readis, firstborn son of Jayge and Aramina of Paradise River Hold, was rescued by dolphins as a boy, and he realized that they could talk. Despite his mother's efforts to keep him away from the dolphins, Readis went on to rediscover man's relationship with dolphins, so much so that he ran away from home to establish the new Dolphin Hall.

Answer: Zaranth

Zaranth, a green, chose her rider almost the same way as Mirrim's Path. Tai was apprentice to StarSmith Master Wansor, and had accompanied him to the Hatching because Wansor was blind and relied on Tai to tell him what was going on. Zaranth refused to accept anyone else and went to her.

As described later, Master Wansor had to practically push Tai at the hatchling since she didn't know whether to respond to Zaranth or to tell Master Wansor what was going on. As it turned out, Zaranth had a hidden talent: she could move things without touching them, which later saved her life, and the lives of Tai, Golanth and F'lessan.

Answer: F'nor and Canth

Menolly wrote that beautiful song about Brekke after experiencing, through her fire lizards, Brekke's cry, and later, F'nor and Canth's experiences on the Red Star, relayed through dragon and fire lizard minds. Brekke had already lost her queen dragon Wirenth and almost died, and was still in a fragile state of mind when her mate F'nor, brown Canth's rider, thought to go to the Red Star to silence the Holders who were clamoring for an end to Thread. F'nor and Canth were terribly burned, but they lived.

Answer: Nip

In "The Skies of Pern", Tagetarl alludes to the first Harper spy, called Nip, who later trained Tuck and several other Harpers to be like him.

Answer: Both of these.

One of the most unforgettable stories in the Pern series is about Jaxom and Ruth. Jaxom's parents died at his birth-- Lady Gemma in childbirth and Lord Fax killed by F'lar in a duel-- so Jaxom was raised by Warder Lytol and groomed to be Lord Holder. However, he attended a Hatching and saw that the smallest egg seemed to be rocking but the dragon inside couldn't get out, so he cut open the shell and of course Impressed Ruth, the first and only white dragon on Pern.

This created an uproar because Jaxom was not even a candidate and should not be a dragonrider because of his status as Lord Holder.

However, F'lar and Lessa convinced the other Weyrleaders and Lord Holders to let Jaxom keep Ruth because he was not a regular dragon. Just as well, because the two of them were destined to play major parts in helping to change the destiny of Pern! Jaxom and Ruth seemed to set precedents for the Impression of hatchlings by bystanders who were not chosen on Search to be candidates, because after that, Mirrim Impressed Path, then Tai Impressed Zaranth, and T'lion Impressed Gadareth. All of those three were mere bystanders who were very, very surprised when hatchling dragons came up to them and chose them instead of the regular candidates.