50 Fun Facts About Redwall

Which one-eyed rat warlord lays siege to the abbey in the first Redwall novel by Brian Jacques?

Cluny the Scourge tries a battering ram, a tunnel and a siege tower before a captive finally opens the gate for him.

A teacher caned ten-year-old Brian Jacques, refusing to believe he wrote a story about a bird and which animal?

A crocodile had its teeth cleaned by the bird in the story. The teacher thought it too good for a ten-year-old and punished him for refusing to admit he had copied it.

In the first Redwall novel, what does Matthias drop on the invading warlord to end the final battle?

A giant bell, the abbey's own, crushes the warlord and cracks in the fall. It is later reshaped into two new ones.

The rich sounds, smells and tastes in Redwall come from Brian Jacques first writing it for which audience?

Blind schoolchildren at the Royal Wavertree School heard him read aloud, so he described sound, smell, taste and touch to help them picture each scene.

Brian Jacques met the first audience for Redwall while working a delivery round in which job?

Milkman was only one of his trades: he had also been a railway fireman, a longshoreman, a bus driver and a stand-up entertainer.

Which name is shared by the woodland around Redwall Abbey and the second novel in the series?

Mossflower the novel is a prequel: it goes back generations to tell how Martin the Warrior freed the woods from a wildcat queen.

The Long Patrol, the fighting regiment of the Redwall books, is made up of which animals?

Hares of the Long Patrol serve as the army of a mountain fortress, and the regiment gives its name to the tenth Redwall novel.

Which streaming service bought the screen rights to the Redwall books in 2021, planning a film and a series?

Netflix attached Over the Garden Wall creator Patrick McHale to write the film, but he left at the end of 2022 and the adaptations were reported cancelled in 2026.

Redwall Abbey, home of the peaceful woodland mice, takes its colour and name from which building stone?

Sandstone, red in colour, gives the abbey its walls and its name. The building only goes up after a wildcat tyranny over the surrounding woods has been broken.

Constance, the powerful guardian who defends Redwall Abbey in the first novel, is which kind of animal?

Badger mother of the abbey, Constance was based by Brian Jacques on his own maternal grandmother.

In which English port city was Brian Jacques born, raised near the docks and later honoured by its university?

Liverpool stayed his home for life: he hosted a local BBC radio show there for twenty years and is buried in the city's Anfield Cemetery.

In the Redwall books, which word do the woodlanders use for enemies such as rats, weasels, stoats and foxes?

Vermin are villains almost by birth in Redwall: with very few exceptions, a creature's species decides whether it is good or evil.

What name do the creatures of Redwall Abbey give to their babies and toddlers?

Dibbuns is a word Brian Jacques made up himself, and it first appears in the fourth book, Mariel of Redwall.

Which volcanic mountain fortress in the Redwall world is the home of the army known as the Long Patrol?

Salamandastron gives its name to the fifth Redwall novel, in which the weasel warlord Ferahgo the Assassin lays siege to it.

Which fieldmouse does Matthias marry after the siege of Redwall Abbey, later becoming the mother of Mattimeo?

Cornflower is no bystander: in Mattimeo she dresses up as a ghost to frighten the birds that have invaded the abbey.

At the start of the first Redwall novel, the clumsy young mouse Matthias holds which rank in the abbey order?

Novice Matthias never takes his vows: the dying abbot rules that he should not become a monk and names him Warrior of Redwall instead.

The image of Martin the Warrior that inspires the creatures of Redwall Abbey is what kind of artwork?

A tapestry so prized that villains keep stealing it: in Marlfox a fox carries the whole thing off and three young Redwallers chase it across the country.

In the Redwall series, the title Skipper is handed down among the leaders of which river animals?

Otters follow a Skipper in book after book, one of the titled tribal chiefs that let familiar roles return while the cast changes.

Which animal classic did the father of Brian Jacques read to him alongside adventures by Stevenson and Conan Doyle?

The Wind in the Willows is also one of the books Redwall is most often compared to, along with Watership Down and The Lord of the Rings.

The Redwall animated series, made in Canada, reached American viewers through which broadcaster?

PBS viewers saw Brian Jacques himself introduce each episode and answer children's questions at the end.

Log-a-Log is the title handed down among the chiefs of which small, argumentative animals in the Redwall books?

Shrews in Redwall quarrel constantly, yet their band guides Matthias to the lair of the great adder that holds the lost sword.

In the first Redwall novel, which wild birds living in the abbey roof once held the sword of Martin the Warrior?

Sparrows of the roof tribe are ruled by a violent king who attacks Matthias, but a young one named Warbeak befriends him and becomes their just queen.

Which self-styled Prince of Mousethieves did Brian Jacques say he based on himself as a boy around the docks?

Gonff meets Martin the Warrior in a dungeon, jailed for stealing food from a wildcat's castle, and the two break out together.

Which ancient mouse, the historian of Redwall Abbey, helps Matthias solve the riddles that lead to the lost sword?

Methuselah dies when the young fox Chickenhound, caught stealing in the abbey, accidentally kills him while making his escape.

Brian Jacques traced the lavish feasts that fill the Redwall books to a childhood shaped by what?

Wartime rationing left the young Jacques daydreaming over the dishes pictured in his aunt's Victorian recipe book.

In the novel Martin the Warrior, the young hero of Redwall legend begins the story as what?

A slave in Marshank, Martin is left out for the weather and the gulls by the stoat Badrang the Tyrant before others help him escape.

In the Redwall books, the famous sword of Martin the Warrior was reforged using metal from what?

A meteorite supplied the metal. Many characters believe the blade is magic, and villains keep trying to steal it for that reason.

Which war cry of the Long Patrol became the title of the nineteenth Redwall novel?

Eulalia is glossed as meaning victory, and the novel named after it arrived a year late, breaking the pattern of a new Redwall book every year.

Which masked fox, once known as Chickenhound, kidnaps the young of Redwall Abbey in the novel Mattimeo?

Slagar the Cruel was maimed by an adder after fleeing the abbey, and he blames Redwall for a crime it never committed against him.

Although it looks French, the surname of Redwall author Brian Jacques is pronounced like which of these?

Jakes is how he said it, a sound echoed in Jakestown, the radio show he hosted for twenty years.

Which huge adder, a terror of the woods in the first Redwall novel, has carried off the sword Matthias seeks?

Asmodeus is finally killed by Matthias with the very sword he had been hoarding, after claiming one last victim from the search party.

Which wildcat queen murders her own father to seize the castle Kotir before Martin the Warrior brings her down?

Tsarmina pins the killing on her gentle brother Gingivere and jails him, but he ends up siding with the woodlanders against her.

General Ironbeak, who captures Redwall Abbey from the roof down in Mattimeo with an army of rooks, is which bird?

Raven general Ironbeak sees through a fake ghost meant to scare his troops, but he is finally killed by the great bird Stryk Redkite.

Gulo the Savage, the flesh-eating invader from the Land of Ice and Snow in Rakkety Tam, is which animal?

Wolverine fits the name: Gulo gulo is the animal's scientific name, and it is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family.

Which warrior mouse, the subject of a Redwall novel of his own, was the father of Martin the Warrior?

Luke sailed away to hunt the pirate who had killed his wife, and before leaving he handed his sword to the young Martin.

On the BBC radio show Brian Jacques hosted for twenty years, which kind of music did he play?

Opera was his passion on air, though his own band, formed with two of his brothers in the 1960s, played folk.

Brian Jacques left school at fifteen and went looking for adventure in which line of work?

Merchant sailor was the first of his many trades, and the sea stayed in his books: several Redwall stories unfold largely aboard sailing ships.

Which legendary ghost ship gives its name to the other children's series by Redwall author Brian Jacques?

The Flying Dutchman leaves just two survivors in his telling, a boy and his dog, who must wander the earth forever young, helping those in need.

Friar Hugo, taken hostage in the final battle of the first Redwall novel, holds which job at the abbey?

Head cook is a big job at Redwall: the first major event of the book is a feast for the abbot's Golden Jubilee.

What weapon does the one-eyed rat warlord of the first Redwall novel wear on the end of his tail?

A poison barb on his long tail is how the warlord fatally wounds the father abbot in the final battle.

Which abbot of Redwall is fatally wounded by the invading warlord's tail in the final battle of the first novel?

Mortimer uses his deathbed to name Brother Alf as his successor, and Alf takes the new name Mordalfus.

Which mousemaid of Noonvale, loved by Martin the Warrior, is killed in the final battle against Badrang the Tyrant?

Laterose, called Rose for short, lives on at the abbey: a climbing flower grown from a sprig off her grave is named after her.

Which sign of a human world appears in the first Redwall novel but is dropped from the later books?

A horse-drawn cart features in one scene of the first book, but the later novels ignore humans and scale castles, bridges and ships to forest creatures.

How did the handwritten manuscript of Redwall by Brian Jacques first come to reach a publisher?

A friend passed it on without telling him: Alan Durband, an English teacher asked only for his opinion, showed it to his own publisher.

Which relative of Brian Jacques voiced Matthias and Martin in the full-cast Redwall audiobooks?

His son Marc took the roles, while Jacques himself narrated almost every one of the recordings.

The Tears of All Oceans, coveted by the island tyrant Ublaz Mad-Eyes in a Redwall novel, are six what?

Pearls, rose-pink and perfectly round, give The Pearls of Lutra its title, and the tyrant sends his monitor lizards across the sea to hunt for them.

Which Canadian animation studio, also behind Babar and Franklin, co-produced the Redwall television series?

Nelvana takes its name from Canada's first national superhero, and its logo shows a polar bear looking at the North Star.

Which Redwall novel, the thirteenth published, tells the earliest story in the timeline of the series?

Lord Brocktree was also the last prequel Brian Jacques wrote; its hero retakes a mountain stronghold from the wildcat Ungatt Trunn.

Which Redwall novel reached bookshops in May 2011, three months after the death of Brian Jacques?

The Rogue Crew sends the villain Razzid Wearat sailing for the abbey; it followed The Sable Quean, the last novel Jacques saw published.

Which artist, also known for the Lone Wolf gamebooks, illustrated the first six Redwall novels?

Gary Chalk also worked on the board game Talisman and drew the maps for the Warriors novels by Erin Hunter.