Menolly of Half-Circle Sea Hold is the primary character of Dragonsong. As the book opens she is only fourteen, the youngest child of a Sea Holder father accustomed to hard work on the fishing fleet but limited in his imagination.

Moreover, Menolly is tall and big-boned, and she feels herself to be entirely too strong and awkward for the role of a daughter in this tradition-bound family.

She carries out the expected female duties, from cleaning slimy fish to caring for infirm older relatives, but her heart soars elsewhere. Inner songs bolster her spirit as she goes about her tasks. In the slivers of time between duties, she steals up to her sleeping cubicle to compose ballads. Menolly is a misfit in her home —an artist in a community of stolid folk—and even worse, a female dreamer.

Dragonsong's theme centers on...