Dragons and their tails

[CuriousFlit]

In the size charts I keep seeing, dragons' tails take up half of their total length. I'm sure I read about this in one of the books, but I can't remember which one. Do you guys know which book it's in?

[Michelle]

Ooh. That's a tough one.

It could have been any, really, it could have been them all.

If I had to guess, I'd say either Dragonsdawn or Dragonflight, with a small possibility that it was the White Dragon. Unfortunately, I don't own any Pern books at the moment (there was a cull, I was not consulted) so I'd have to hit the library to give a better answer.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Michelle

... (there was a cull, I was not consulted) ...

My condolences. That happened to me once when I was living at home years ago. If I still had the books they would now be antiques (at least as far as Americans are concerned) and worth quite a bit!

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Michelle

... (there was a cull, I was not consulted) ...

That's terrible! I hope you're able to get them back someday. Currently going through DragonsDawn myself to check...

[Michelle]

I know, it's miserable

I hope you find the bit you're after though!

And as a side note I just thought of today, have you tried reaching out to the artists of these charts and asking where they got it from? It might help cut the search down a little...

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Michelle

I hope you find the bit you're after though!

And as a side note I just thought of today, have you tried reaching out to the artists of these charts and asking where they got it from? It might help cut the search down a little...

Thanks. Now why didn't I think of that? Thanks again! lol

On a side note, in regards to the whole "meters vs feet" debate. These are just mine and mom's thoughts, but: I used to be in favor of the "feet" camp, until mom helped me look through DragonsDawn trying to figure out how long a dragonlength is.

Since Anne measures liquids in liters, mom determined that it had to be meters the dragons were measured in. I pointed out that this would make all of them but the smallest greens (and Ruth) longer than blue whales, and mom laughs and says "Yeah, they can look through second story windows. Did you never realize how big that is?" I pointed out that dragons don't eat much if they're so big, and mom countered that they're like large dinosaurs. Warmblooded, but with a slow metabolism. They may only eat once a week, but they eat about two cows during a meal. The bigger colors do anyway. A greenrider mentioned that two cheetahs were enough for her dragon's weekly meal. I pointed out that maybe that's why dragons sunbathe so much, maybe they absorb some energy that way too? Mom agrees with me there.

And then I remembered that bit about half a dragon's length being taken up by their tail. If that's true, than that in itself isn't too big, right? Their wingspan, plus shoulders, are one and two-thirds as long as the whole dragon according to Dragonlover's Guide.

[Anareth]

Anne said the 'meters' used in the DLG were wrong. She meant feet, and for the dragon sizes to work functionally people have worked out it's probably more like the DLG measurements should be read as about 1.5 feet. (And it makes sense. It's just not biologically feasible to have an animal the size of an L-1011 who could be fed reasonably on two cows a week, or a few turkey-size birds ie wherries, and it would be physically impossible for Lessa to bathe and harness her alone. Not to mention people would have figured out a long time ago they weren't using their wings to fly--wing surface area to lift something that big would be gigantic. They wouldn't be able to land in courtyards or fit in caverns. No, it doesn't matter how light their bones are.)

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Anareth

Anne said the 'meters' used in the DLG were wrong. She meant feet

Everyone keeps saying that, but I've looked all over the internet and can't find the source of that claim. Do you know where it is?

a few turkey-size birds ie wherries

Wherries are ostrich-sized. They just look a little like turkeys.

I do understand what you're saying though, which is why I was originally in favor of the "feet" measurement. But if DLG was wrong (and considering the number of other mistakes I can easily see why it would be), then why is meters used in the Atlas too for dragonlengths?

Also, here's one of the charts that I was talking about which had the meters measurement and half the dragons' length being their tail. Does the artist's reasoning make any sense as to why they used meters? Math isn't my strong point, so I can't really tell.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Pern-D...hart-133868492

[Michelle]

Meters in the atlas might have been a result of somebody grabbing an old book to check the sizes, seeing meters, and not remembering the change.

As for the size charts themselves, this one here is my personal favourite. Largely because I love what the artist has done with the shoulder muscles. I mean, check those! And the vivid colours! Although her golds and bronzes are admittedly a few feet bigger than I would personally put them for preference.

But I think that overall they're a reasonable size. You can feed them, clean them, fit them into your living quarters... (because, note, it is said that some dragons sleep on the stone benches at the front of their rider's quarters, and you can do that with a 2.5m green, not a 22m green). 22m greens take up way too much space to fit on a couch by the door.

As for looking through second storey windows, have you ever seen a cat, or a little dog, go up on their hind legs to peer into a high window/the tv screen etc? The littler dragons are still capable of doing that, I expect.

But, onto the artist's reasons.

The size of Ruth. Not having my books here to check, I guess the important question is whether he's specifically "as tall as" or just as "the size of" because those can have very different meanings (Ruth might be considered to weigh as much as a large horse, or have the girth of one, for example). There's also the fact that Anne often went by 'what looks/feels good' rather than 'what did I say last time?' so she might have just decided that 'horse-sized' sounded like a good description for Ruth rather than 'pony-sized'.

And look at Sporelett's chart - the "average" horse is apparently around 14 hands (according to google), Ruth is about 5 feet tall at the shoulder, and 5 feet is about 15 hands. Ruth is the size of a tall (admittedly -ish) horse. Not larger than a tall horse, but certainly not any smaller.

Also, we don't know what effects evolution and alien nutrition have had on Pernese horses/runnerbeasts. They might be even shorter than normal, or even taller, or exactly the same. Hard to say.

Multiple riders: Well, we kind of have to accept telekinesis as word of god, whatever our personal feelings. That means a dragon can carry as many people as can fit on their backs. On this chart, I'd say easily two, probably three, possibly even four if they were child-sized and nobody minded getting cosy (because even though the back seems the same length as Ruth, I'm less worried about the actual musculature being overloaded, read more on this next paragraph)

The chart also shows greens as being about 50% larger than Ruth. I'll admit I struggle to picture this Ruth carrying three, because he only has a few feet of usable back (and I don't really accept telekinesis on the emotional level), but if the three are slenderish and don't mind squishing for a bit they could probably fit into even 2 feet of back length between the back of his wings and the front of his hips, which is how I measure Ruth here.

Finally, Mnementh's eyes. My understanding is that the first chapter or so of Dragonflight was originally written as a stand alone novella (possibly for Playboy, or was that how the Botany Bay ones started?). It was written as a separate work, which didn't have to play by any particular rules of physics, just 'rule of cool' where the bigger the dragon ... the bigger the 'dragon' if you get my meaning.

She later went back and essentially pasted it onto the beginning of a new work, Dragonflight as we know it, under the theory that the intro had already sold once and she knew people liked it, so why mess with it. So there are apparently some notable size fluctuations between the intro and the rest of the novel.

Someone else on here did a break-down, I believe, about all this. Couldn't find it on a quick search though.

So yeah, Anne wrote a 'dragons are awesome' short story, got thinking about the plot and the characters, decided to write some more, and then had to think about how dragons actually worked (food, shelter, care) and wound up cutting all the sizes down significantly. I don't believe there's anywhere else in the entire series where dragons are portrayed as that large.

Seem like fair reasons?

[Brenda]

Wasn't it four riding Ruth at the end of TWD, when they went to see what was on the other side of the mountain?

Actually, it's possible Ruth might have been bigger by then. It had been a turn or two, I think, since the beginning of the book.

[Anareth]

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

Everyone keeps saying that, but I've looked all over the internet and can't find the source of that claim. Do you know where it is?

[/url]

Because we asked. You weren't around in the old days of the KT when Anne came to chat periodically. She was nice about questions (and also loved to talk about stuff like horses.) Remember she didn't write the DLG or Atlas so nothing (except the short story in the DLG, which she DID write) are canon. And some people on here (notably Hans, who lives a lot closer to Ireland!) met the lady in person. So a lot of questions got answered BAAS (Because Anne Says So.)

And like Michelle brings up, when it comes to "people they can carry", we kind of have to take telekinesis, meaning Ruth (who usually seems to be about the body size of a big horse, though presumably dragonbacks are stronger than horses--you can safely fit maybe two people, or three light kids, on the average horse if you're careful, but their spines aren't meant to take weight farther back) can be small and still lift people, and four could crowd onto a Moreta-era blue. And as far as dragons being small, note that when Moreta rides a green it feels so small compared to Orlith she has an irrational worry she's too big for the green and feels a bit insecure compared to a queen, suggesting the green's pretty darn small.

[P'ter]

After Eurocon when Anne and I were chatting at Copenhagen airport she seemed to imply that for metres read feet: i.e. gold 30 feet long not thirty metres.

I think that Elizabeth Moon makes the same mistake in the Vatta's War series. She describes an old spaceship being scrapped as too small at 600 metres long by 200 metres. But the description of the cargo spaces and loads makes more sense if the ship is 600 x 200 feet.

[Brenda]

The chart Michelle posted has Ruth quite a lot smaller than a green. I always read him as being only slightly smaller than the average green.

[CuriousFlit]

AtWoP says that Ruth is bigger then Carenath, and WD says Ruth is "half the size of his fellows" and "a full head higher in the shoulder than runner beasts. Sturdier too" at full growth. DLG says that the dragons of the original eighteen were "ten to twelve feet long and about sixteen to eighteen hands high at the shoulder". It also says that Ruth is "only twenty feet long". Does that help?

[CuriousFlit]

So if 20-25 meter Greens make Ruth 20 feet, then how small would Ruth be if the Greens were 20.5-25.5 feet? And would Ramoth still be about the size of a jet if she were measured in feet?

[CuriousFlit]

Oh! And I just remembered about the watch whers. DLG says: "When full grown, whers weighed between six and eight hundred pounds, about the size of a small low-slung horse". But Todd said in answering a fan letter about gold watch whers: "With regards to your questions about watch-whers — well said! Those are great questions. I can answer one — watch-wher golds are bigger than both green and blue dragons. I don’t know how a watch-wher gold stacks up against a brown dragon, I’m pretty sure a watch-wher gold is smaller than a bronze and I’m certain that a gold watch-wher (even Third Pass) is smaller than a gold dragon."

So if a green wher is about the size of a horse, and a gold wher about the size of a brown dragon, would that be another point in favor of the feet measurement?

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Anareth

Because we asked. You weren't around in the old days of the KT when Anne came to chat periodically. She was nice about questions (and also loved to talk about stuff like horses.) Remember she didn't write the DLG or Atlas so nothing (except the short story in the DLG, which she DID write) are canon. And some people on here (notably Hans, who lives a lot closer to Ireland!) met the lady in person. So a lot of questions got answered BAAS (Because Anne Says So.)

Oh. That makes more sense than. Thanks for clearing that up.

And like Michelle brings up, when it comes to "people they can carry", we kind of have to take telekinesis, meaning Ruth (who usually seems to be about the body size of a big horse, though presumably dragonbacks are stronger than horses--you can safely fit maybe two people, or three light kids, on the average horse if you're careful, but their spines aren't meant to take weight farther back) can be small and still lift people, and four could crowd onto a Moreta-era blue. And as far as dragons being small, note that when Moreta rides a green it feels so small compared to Orlith she has an irrational worry she's too big for the green and feels a bit insecure compared to a queen, suggesting the green's pretty darn small.

It says in DragonsDawn and in White Dragon that dragons are stronger and sturdier than horses. I haven't read Moreta yet. I really should get around to that...

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Michelle

Meters in the atlas might have been a result of somebody grabbing an old book to check the sizes, seeing meters, and not remembering the change.

I suppose so, looking through the Atlas again. Lessa's and F'lar's weyrs are measured in feet, and if I'm measuring them right with the ruler on the page, they'd be too small for 40-something meter-sized dragons, even curled up. And don't dragons like to stretch out when they lie down on their couches?

...or is that just cats I'm thinking of?

As for the size charts themselves, this one here is my personal favourite. Largely because I love what the artist has done with the shoulder muscles. I mean, check those! And the vivid colours! Although her golds and bronzes are admittedly a few feet bigger than I would personally put them for preference.

Wow! How do they manage a hop-skip without falling flat on their faces if the chest and shoulders are that big? Would the weight from the big hind leg muscles and using their wings help balance them out?

But I think that overall they're a reasonable size. You can feed them, clean them, fit them into your living quarters... (because, note, it is said that some dragons sleep on the stone benches at the front of their rider's quarters, and you can do that with a 2.5m green, not a 22m green). 22m greens take up way too much space to fit on a couch by the door.

Yeah, you're right about that.

As for looking through second storey windows, have you ever seen a cat, or a little dog, go up on their hind legs to peer into a high window/the tv screen etc? The littler dragons are still capable of doing that, I expect.

Oh yeah... I'd forgotten they could do that. Lol my cats do that all the time when they want attention. Hang on... Yeah right here, it says in the DLG that Kitti Ping changed their skeletons a little so they'd be more comfortable sitting up on their back legs.

But, onto the artist's reasons.

The size of Ruth. Not having my books here to check, I guess the important question is whether he's specifically "as tall as" or just as "the size of" because those can have very different meanings (Ruth might be considered to weigh as much as a large horse, or have the girth of one, for example). There's also the fact that Anne often went by 'what looks/feels good' rather than 'what did I say last time?' so she might have just decided that 'horse-sized' sounded like a good description for Ruth rather than 'pony-sized'.

And look at Sporelett's chart - the "average" horse is apparently around 14 hands (according to google), Ruth is about 5 feet tall at the shoulder, and 5 feet is about 15 hands. Ruth is the size of a tall (admittedly -ish) horse. Not larger than a tall horse, but certainly not any smaller.

Also, we don't know what effects evolution and alien nutrition have had on Pernese horses/runnerbeasts. They might be even shorter than normal, or even taller, or exactly the same. Hard to say.

When comparing Ruth to horses in WD, it's by shoulder height: "he's a full head taller in the shoulder than any runner beast. Sturdier too." If I remember right, the horse types bred in the North were draft animals, racers, and light riding mounts. Draft horses get pretty tall don't they?

... but if the three are slenderish and don't mind squishing for a bit they could probably fit into even 2 feet of back length between the back of his wings and the front of his hips, which is how I measure Ruth here.

Would there be room between wings and hips? I thought the wing membrane went all the way back over the hips and connected to the tail base.

Finally, Mnementh's eyes. My understanding is that the first chapter or so of Dragonflight was originally written as a stand alone novella (possibly for Playboy, or was that how the Botany Bay ones started?). It was written as a separate work, which didn't have to play by any particular rules of physics, just 'rule of cool' where the bigger the dragon ... the bigger the 'dragon' if you get my meaning.

Heh, yeah I get the meaning. Oh, and the magazine was Science Fiction Analog.

She later went back and essentially pasted it onto the beginning of a new work, Dragonflight as we know it, under the theory that the intro had already sold once and she knew people liked it, so why mess with it. So there are apparently some notable size fluctuations between the intro and the rest of the novel.

Someone else on here did a break-down, I believe, about all this. Couldn't find it on a quick search though.

So yeah, Anne wrote a 'dragons are awesome' short story, got thinking about the plot and the characters, decided to write some more, and then had to think about how dragons actually worked (food, shelter, care) and wound up cutting all the sizes down significantly. I don't believe there's anywhere else in the entire series where dragons are portrayed as that large.

Seem like fair reasons?

That does explain a lot. Todd mentioned too in one of his fan answers that the dragons had "shrunk" over the years. Lol dragons are pretty awesome though. Thanks again.

[Michelle]

Heh, turns out I have a lot to say. My apologies in advance for the length...

Originally Posted by Brenda

The chart Michelle posted has Ruth quite a lot smaller than a green. I always read him as being only slightly smaller than the average green.

I think he has to be notably smaller, because doesn't Mirrim tease Jaxom about how small Ruth is at one point? And if her dragon was from the same clutch, growing at the same rate, there's no reason for her to tease if they're around the same size., unless Path had just hit a growth spurt and temporarily outgrown to a noticeable degree...

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

AtWoP says that Ruth is bigger then Carenath, and WD says Ruth is "half the size of his fellows" and "a full head higher in the shoulder than runner beasts. Sturdier too" at full growth. DLG says that the dragons of the original eighteen were "ten to twelve feet long and about sixteen to eighteen hands high at the shoulder". It also says that Ruth is "only twenty feet long". Does that help?

Actually, that's really weird, because I was sure Carenath was about the same size as Cricket, a very tall horse of around 17 hands if I remember rightly...

It is useful though, if Ruth is say 6 foot at the shoulder then we know that 'normal' dragons must be around 12 feet at the shoulder. Bet there's a bunch of artists who would love to know that. And if 12 feet is under 4 meters then I think dragons would look really weird and stretchy if they were 20m long as well. I think you'd have to essentially halve their heights in that first chart.

Although, even if feet, that makes the 'launchy-vaulty thing' off the forearm really weird to picture, because anything that big is going to be more of a scramble... If the forearm is 6 feet in the air (halfway between ground and the shoulder) oh, that's so undignified!

Honestly, I think text evidence means that runners have to have shrunk if that's the case. Ruth can't be both half the size of his fellows, and a foot taller than a tall earth horse without things just getting weird.

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

So if 20-25 meter Greens make Ruth 20 feet, then how small would Ruth be if the Greens were 20.5-25.5 feet? And would Ramoth still be about the size of a jet if she were measured in feet?

I think traditionally you just flip the units, not the numbers. So greens go from 20m to 20ft and Ruth goes from (say) 18m to 18ft. I did google for Ramonth's size, and she would be the size of the world's largest paper aeroplane apparently! I'm sure there are little planes in that 45 feet size range, but not the huge massive ones she's sometimes compared too.

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

Oh! And I just remembered about the watch whers. DLG says: "When full grown, whers weighed between six and eight hundred pounds, about the size of a small low-slung horse". But Todd said in answering a fan letter about gold watch whers: "With regards to your questions about watch-whers — well said! Those are great questions. I can answer one — watch-wher golds are bigger than both green and blue dragons. I don’t know how a watch-wher gold stacks up against a brown dragon, I’m pretty sure a watch-wher gold is smaller than a bronze and I’m certain that a gold watch-wher (even Third Pass) is smaller than a gold dragon."

So if a green wher is about the size of a horse, and a gold wher about the size of a brown dragon, would that be another point in favor of the feet measurement?

Weird, I always figured they were sort of large-dog to small-pony sized myself. Aren't they used in mining? Even in feet, that seems way too large to be sensible, and in meters it just sounds rather ludicrous.

Given that watch-whers are largely considered useless for most of Pern's history, is anyone going to carve suitably large accommodations out of rock at that size? A kennel big enough for a 35 foot dog (plus, since it's a gold, any offspring). And can you imagine if they actually reached 35m? Good watch dogs or not, I can't imagine anyone wanting it around.

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

I suppose so, looking through the Atlas again. Lessa's and F'lar's weyrs are measured in feet, and if I'm measuring them right with the ruler on the page, they'd be too small for 40-something meter-sized dragons, even curled up. And don't dragons like to stretch out when they lie down on their couches?

...or is that just cats I'm thinking of?

The drawing may or may not be perfectly to scale (although if they included a ruler you'd hope it was close!), but yeah, meters just seems weirdly large given what we're told in text about behaviour and how dragons fit into society.

Might be both

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

Wow! How do they manage a hop-skip without falling flat on their faces if the chest and shoulders are that big? Would the weight from the big hind leg muscles and using their wings help balance them out?

I'll admit, I'm not sure how the hop-skipping goes. I kind of picture them reaching out with the front, and swinging the back forward (if you've ever seen how a cheetah runs, kind of like that). I just like it because I think that doubled up muscle-structure makes sense, the same muscles wouldn't control the forelegs and wing joints, so you do need two lots. Plus, apparently flying requires lots going on in the pecs anyway...

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

When comparing Ruth to horses in WD, it's by shoulder height: "he's a full head taller in the shoulder than any runner beast. Sturdier too." If I remember right, the horse types bred in the North were draft animals, racers, and light riding mounts. Draft horses get pretty tall don't they?

They do, but we come back again to what that means in terms or practical size and what we're shown in the text. If the horses are, say, 17 hands (or 5'8") tall, then we add a head (which I think it about a foot, or three more hands) and come to 20 hands/nearly 6'8" feet at the shoulder. And then we double it to get to a green or blue at around 13'4" I believe - which is way too tall to easily mount without a ladder, and we don't see riders carrying those about.

I don't know all that much about horses, I'll admit, so maybe there's ways around mounting something that big, but it just seems unlikely to me...

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

Would there be room between wings and hips? I thought the wing membrane went all the way back over the hips and connected to the tail base.

Now we get into personal headcanons. I tend to have my riders kind of kneeling across the spine, rather than sitting normally. I'm not sure of the canon shape of Anne's wings, whether they've got the long membrane or the 'traditional' unattached edge, but if they aren't attached it's no biggie and they sit normally across the back. If they are (which I personally prefer) the only options are kneeling across the back or sitting up on the neck itself, which I think would make multiple passengers impossible. One rider could sit at the join in front of the wings, but I think that might inhibit maneuverability too much and would certainly be uncomfortable with passengers.

Ah, Science Fiction Analogue, there we go!

Once more, sorry for the inhumane length.

[CuriousFlit]

Does anyone know if the Pernese used Pit Ponies in addition to whers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_pony

Also, that wher at the start of Dragon's Kin was a male, a brown, and he didn't seem to have trouble fitting into the shafts. It says they're like a "small low-slung horse", so maybe they just weight as much as a horse but are a little shorter (greens anyway, will have to read that book again...)? I think it's actually new-hatched dragons that are large dog, small pony sized.

[CuriousFlit]

Out of curiosity, whatever happened to those questions and answers you guys shared with Anne? Are there any records of them?

[P'ter]

I think that most of the descriptions of multiple riders on a dragon still has them all sitting just AHEAD of the wings, on the base of the neck.

[Eriflor]

Originally Posted by Michelle

Heh, turns out I have a lot to say. My apologies in advance for the length...



I think he has to be notably smaller, because doesn't Mirrim tease Jaxom about how small Ruth is at one point? And if her dragon was from the same clutch, growing at the same rate, there's no reason for her to tease if they're around the same size., unless Path had just hit a growth spurt and temporarily outgrown to a noticeable degree....

Path isn't from the same clutch as Ruth.
Ruth was hatched at the end of DragonQuest, Path 3 or 4 turns later in DragonDrums. I'm not sure if Path was fully grown when the teasing occurred, but Ruth certainly was. Was it the scene where Menolly commented on Path being about ready for her first mating flight?

Eriflor.

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Eriflor

Path isn't from the same clutch as Ruth.
Ruth was hatched at the end of DragonQuest, Path 3 or 4 turns later in DragonDrums. I'm not sure if Path was fully grown when the teasing occurred, but Ruth certainly was. Was it the scene where Menolly commented on Path being about ready for her first mating flight?

Eriflor.

I'm pretty sure the teasing about Ruth was because he wasn't interested in mating, and his small size. Something about him being "an unsexed runt". And yes, it was during when Menolly and Jaxom were teasing about Path getting ready for her first mating flight.

[CuriousFlit]

I went back through my copy of DLG and it says that the horses brought to Pern were "small" breeds. Connemara, Welsh (for riding), and Shire (as a draft animal). I believe Connemara were also mentioned in the short story about the founding of Ruatha Hold. Interestingly enough, Welsh and Connemara are actually pony breeds... And Shires are one of the largest horse breeds according to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connemara_pony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Pony_and_Cob

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_horse

Oh, and DLG says that all "true" horses were wiped out during the Sixth Pass Plague, leaving only the modified "Runnerbeasts". I haven't read Moreta yet, so I wouldn't know for sure.

[Anareth]

"Pony" is an arbitrary designation when it comes to Connemaras (which are built more like small horses) and there are actually IIRC three different Welsh stud books, all of which have different types. And yes, Shires are huge. They're one of the largest and heaviest draft breeds. This seems like something the DLG just kind of extrapolated from DF rather than something logical-Anne doesn't actually mention many breeds by name except that Cricket (Sean's horse) is bred to look like the Connemara he left behind but grow to sport-horse height via genetic tinkering.

And the 'true horses vs runnerbeasts' sounds like a pure DLG-ism. There's no difference that wasn't present from the first engineered animals the colonists created (all the livestock had to be modified to thrive on Pern's grasses and plants.) At *Ruatha* specifically, the stock that survives are Alessan's strains of ugly but effective racing runners, and all equines are already called 'runnerbeasts.' That was a linguistic shift (same as "herdbeasts" becoming a generic term to cover what the word "cattle" used to before it became specific to bovines) that happened some time before Moreta is set.

And seriously, read Moreta. It's the single best Pern book Anne wrote as far as literary merit goes.

[GinnyStar]

Originally Posted by CuriousFlit

Does anyone know if the Pernese used Pit Ponies in addition to whers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_pony

Also, that wher at the start of Dragon's Kin was a male, a brown, and he didn't seem to have trouble fitting into the shafts. It says they're like a "small low-slung horse", so maybe they just weight as much as a horse but are a little shorter (greens anyway, will have to read that book again...)? I think it's actually new-hatched dragons that are large dog, small pony sized.

His name was Dask bonded to Danil, blooded to Kindan, he sired two clutches in his youth

And yes, the camp would have to become a mine, and more shafts would have been needed one for coal and one for air. Widen the tunnels so they can get carts around the mine. Zist and Kindan talking. Dragon's Kin for I've listen/read it many times.

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by GinnyStar

His name was Dask bonded to Danil, blooded to Kindan, he sired two clutches in his youth

And yes, the camp would have to become a mine, and more shafts would have been needed one for coal and one for air. Widen the tunnels so they can get carts around the mine. Zist and Kindan talking. Dragon's Kin for I've listen/read it many times.

Thanks. It's been a few years since I've read the book, so I couldn't remember that much about Dask. It was sad when he died though.

[Brenda]

Ruth needn't have been smaller than Path for Mirrim to call him a runt - he was considerably smaller than any other male dragon, was the point.

[GinnyStar]

Or a Moreta size bronze crying six folks, the blue was a wyerling so not at full size.

[CuriousFlit]

Originally Posted by Brenda

Ruth needn't have been smaller than Path for Mirrim to call him a runt - he was considerably smaller than any other male dragon, was the point.

Originally Posted by GinnyStar

Or a Moreta size bronze crying six folks, the blue was a wyerling so not at full size.

So if DLG got it right and Ruth is 20 feet, that would make sense because he'd still be smaller than any male dragon, but bigger than Carenath?