Vocabulary
Agenothree: A common Chemical on Pern. Flamethrowers us agenothree to create their fire and can be used both a-dragonback and on the ground to sear threads.
Between: An area of utter nothingness and cold which dragons use to travel between any two places in no longer than it takes a man to cough three times.
Black Rock: Pernese coal, occasionally also called Cromcoal
Day Sisters: a trio of stars visible from Pern. They always appear in the same area of the sky and never seem to move and are most visible at dawn and dusk. Often called the Dawn Sisters.
Deadglow: an insult implying stupidity in the person it is being applied to. Derived from glow.
Fellis: a flowering tree
Fellis Juice: a juice made from the fruit of the fellis tree. It is a soporific and induces sleep.
Fire-Stone: a phosphine-bearing mineral which dragons chew to produce flame. The rock is digested in the dragon's second stomach and the gas produced ignites when it contacts oxygen.
Glow: a light-source which can be carried in a hand-basket. It is the most common light-source on Pern and does have a limited life, but this can be extended by fully covering it.
High Reaches: a mountain chain in the north-western corner of the north continent.
Hold: a place where the common people live; originally they were cut into the mountains and hillsides.
Impression: the joining of minds of a dragon and his rider-to-be at the moment of the dragon's hatching.
Interval: the period of time between passes, normally about 200 turns.
Klah: a hot stimulating drink made of tree bark and tasting faintly of cinnamon ((think coffee and you'll have the right idea))
Looks to: is Impressed by
Long Interval: a period of time, generally twice the length of a standard interval, in which no Thread falls and Dragonmen decrease in number. Occasionally they are thought to herald the end of Threads.
Month: four sevendays
Mosstea: this herb is packed into wounds to prevent infection or can be infused to make a soothing tea.
Needlethorn: Pern's version of needles, these are both easier and harder to come by. They grow readily in Nerat, but during most of the Spring and Summer months are filled with a deadly poison and only become safe even to harvest at the end of Summer.
Numbweed: a medicinal cream which, when smeared on wounds, kills all feeling, used as an anesthetic
Pass: a period of time during which the Red Star is close enough to drop Thread on Pern
Pern: thrid star of Rukbat's five plantes. It has two natural satellites.
Red Star: Pern's stepsister planet, It has an erratic orbit and travels in and out of the Rukbat system.
Redwort: a Pernese herb that when steeped and applied to the skin or a wound acts as an antiseptic wash. It leaves a characteristic red stain on the skin.
Rukbat: a yellow star in the Sagittarian Sector, Rukbat has five plantes and two asteroid belts.
Sevenday: the equivalent of a week on Pern
Thread: (mycorrhizoid) spores from the Red Star, which descen don Pern and burrow into it, devouring all organic material they encounter. The Dragonriders were establishe in order to fight Thread and stop the spores from reaching the planet surface.
Turn: a Pernese year which contains 13 months
Watch-wher: a nocturnal reptile distantly related to dragons. They are often the guardians of holds.
Weyr: a home of dragons and their riders. Most often a extinct volcano.
weyr: a dragon's den within the Weyr
Weyrsinger: the Harper for the Dragonriders, usually a rider himself
Wherries: a type of fowl roughly resembling a turkey, but about the size of an Ostrich.
Withies: water plants resemblint he reeds of Earth.
Pernese oaths
By the Egg
By the shards of my dragon's egg
By the first egg
By the Egg of Faranth
Shells
Through Fall, Fog, and Fire
Scorch it
Shards
Crackdust
Shaffit
Jays
fardles
Maledicta
Wherry teeth: nonesense; I don't believe you
That's well dusted: It's nasty or unpleasant
He was born under the Red Star: someone evil or generally disliked or unlucky
Bend a tail: defecate
A hunk of firestone; all gas and ash:a braggart or a blowhard
Has a dragon's two stomachs: a "hollow leg," endless apetite
Tail fork first: backward
Wherry hunt: "wild-goose chase," a fruitless, foolish quest
Like trying to draw an inside straight in Bitra: an impossibility
Hatching fire lizards: building castles in the air
Chew it raw and swallow: accept the inevitable
A dragon among the wherries: cat among the pidgeons
Smokeless weyrling: useless (refers to a person or animal)
Go for a blow: go soak your head; shove off
Specific Medicines and Their Possible Sources
Analgesic: red willow salic, meadowsweet
Anodyne: aconite, whitehorm, adonis, glovecap, hops
Antispasmodic: parsley, basil
Burns: aloe, dragon's tongue (Pern aloe), comfrey, cucumber, witch hazel
Cough medicine: tussilago, comfrey, hyssop, thymus, borrago
Diaphoretic: box, ezob
Diuretic: ash bark
Febrifuge: sweatroot, spearleek, whitebulb
Tonic: featherfern, nettleweed, tansy
Units of Measure
fingertip: 1/2 in wide
hand: 4 in
handspan: extended thumb to little fingertip; 8-9 in
manheight: varies; over 5'2", under 6'2"
dragonlength: size of a green; 10 feet
weaver's length: from nosetip to extended arm fingertip; approx. 1 yd