Book summary “Redwall”: summary

Introduction

You live in a peaceful woodland community constantly vulnerable to predatory invasions by ruthless tyrants. The constant threat of destruction leaves your home defenseless against overwhelming odds.

Brian Jacques shows in Redwall how peaceful creatures unite under legendary badger lords to defend their fortress from the Blue Hordes. You learn to secure strongholds, survive wilderness ambushes, and dismantle occupying armies through strategic guerrilla warfare.

The book proceeds through four structured stages.

• How do you secure historical alliances against an overwhelming enemy?
• What tactical positioning ensures survival during underground escapes?
• How does organized resistance defeat an occupying army?
• Which leadership strategies resolve prolonged wars?

1. History and Alliances

Securing a stronghold against an overwhelming enemy requires extensive historical research, rapid scouting missions, and pragmatic coalition building.

You must preserve the history of a mountain fortress through deep research across diverse local dwellings and generations. Lord Russano spent two seasons compiling the history of Lord Brocktree by studying old parchments, inspecting forge carvings, and interviewing sea otters, squirrels, and moles. Russano spent four days crouching in a mole dwelling to interview two fat old moles whose story was passed down from their great-grandmother.

When a stronghold is threatened by overwhelming forces, sending out swift runners to gather scattered allies is the last line of defense. Lord Stonepaw dispatches the ancient hare Fleetscut to scour the countryside for wandering warriors and squirrel tribes to aid Salamandastron. Fleetscut runs continuously for nearly two days across harsh terrain, tracked by ten rats in the initial pursuing patrol, before being rescued by Jukka the Sling's squirrel tribe.

Gathering Intelligence and Allies

Neutral factions can be persuaded to join a conflict not through emotional appeals, but through the promise of material plunder and captured weapons. Jukka the Sling refuses initial emotional pleas to help defend Salamandastron, but agrees to march when framed as a profitable business venture for acquiring weapons. After Fleetscut insults her leadership, Jukka commits her squirrel tribe, consisting of fifty able-bodied creatures with twelve too young or old to serve and forty-three marching, to join the quest specifically to gather abandoned enemy armor and blades.

Isolated territorial rulers extract strict payment in valuable provisions for any intelligence they possess. The flightless owl Udara Groundslay demands multiple honey-soaked ration packs from Fleetscut and the squirrels before revealing rumors about a gathering army. Udara accepts three heavy ration packs in exchange for a piece of bark scroll mentioning a March hare named King Bucko Bigbones.

2. Survival and Tactics

Surviving wilderness ambushes and underground escapes demands immediate tactical positioning, adherence to traditional navigational lore, and strict combat discipline.

Lord Brocktree advises the young haremaid Dotti on tactical positioning after rescuing her from thirteen stoats in Drigg Slopmouth's brood. When facing multiple opponents in an ambush, a combatant must immediately secure their back against a solid barrier like a rock or a tree. Brocktree intervenes and uses Drigg Slopmouth as a weapon to swat away the attacking stoats in Mossflower Wood.

• Remember, if there's more than one enemy always get your back against a rock or a tree.

Ungatt Trunn and his magician Groddil use massive arrays of torches to blot out the night sky with light and command their Blue Hordes, marching in columns fifty deep and fifty long, to jump in unison to create the illusion of an earthquake. Warlords can create psychological dominance by staging illusions that mimic impossible feats, such as making the stars vanish or the earth shake. The Grand Fragorl delivers an ultimatum demanding the surrender of Salamandastron, after which the Blue Hordes light thousands of torches and stomp on the sand near twoscore guards nearest the mountain, driving away seventy-two dead and sixty captured hares.

Tactical Positioning and Escapes

Ruffgar Brookback shares his grandmother's secret recipe for preparing dace caught in the stream using wild vegetation and a flour-and-oat crust. Culinary preparation in the wilderness relies on fresh local herbs and a protective crust to preserve flavor during baking. Ruff prepares a meal for Brocktree and Dotti using tender dandelion shoots, wild onions, hedge parsley, and two fat leeks.

• Chop tender new dandelion shoots, wild onions, hedge parsley, and two fat leeks.
• Set them over the fire in a little water without boiling.
• Top and tail two dace and lay them flat on a thin rock.
• Mix cornflour and oats with vegetable water and spread it over the fish to bake with a crunchy crust.
• Drain the vegetables while firm, spread them in a bed, and top with the baked dace.

Lord Stonepaw chooses to hold the underground cave entrance against Ungatt Trunn's vast horde of rats to ensure Stiffener Medick and the surviving hares can escape through the ceiling passage. A leader must sometimes sacrifice themselves to buy critical time for their people to escape mortal danger. Lord Stonepaw triggers an oil fire and drags his captors into the bottomless pool with the war cry of Salamandastron.

Log a Log Grenn leads the Guosim shrews, who are perpetually arguing among themselves but demonstrate absolute solidarity and formidable combat prowess when allied with Brocktree's party. Nomadic and quarrelsome groups can form fiercely loyal alliances when united by a common code of honor alongside threescore captive hares held in the dining hall and about a hunnerd shrews joining the quest. Ruff fights off a giant pike known as the Riverwolf to rescue the hedgehog babe Skittles, earning the instant admiration of the Guosim shrews.

Old Bramwil and Lord Stonepaw piece together an ancient skiprope chant called Littlebob Hare that details the exact route through stalactite formations and ceiling holes to escape the cavern system. Traditional children's skiprope rhymes can encode practical survival knowledge and escape routes for future generations. Blench and Stiffener use the clues from the rhyme, specifically identifying the coiling snake stalactite and the plum cake formation, to locate the hidden exit.

Stiffener Medick and the escaping hares must charge directly through a massive swarm of aggressive spiny spider crabs migrating up the tunnel to escape the incoming tide. Natural obstacles like migrating marine life require immediate, aggressive momentum to break through narrow bottlenecks. Stiffener uses a flaming torch to clear a path through the snapping pincers of the crab swarm just as the high-tide roller hits the passage.

3. Guerrilla Warfare and Royal Contests

An occupying army can be systematically dismantled through organized coastal resistance, high-altitude rope rescues, and strategic victories in royal challenge contests.

Stiffener Medick and his weary group of hares stumble into the coastal cave of Brogalaw, Skipper of Sea Otters, after escaping the wildcat's forces. The sea otters provide dry shelter, special chowder, seaweed grog, and agree to help plan a rescue mission to free the remaining hares trapped high up on the mountain. Brogalaw and his mother Frutch welcome the hares into their cave, where an immobile grey heron named Rulango also lives as a companion.

To rescue hares trapped in a high mountain window hole of Salamandastron, the sea otter Brogalaw devises a plan where a heron flies thin heaving lines up to the captives. Once the lines are secured to an interior iron ring, the prisoners use the heavy rope to rappel down while the remaining defenders jam the door locks. Rulango the heron flies a rope up to the high window, allowing Sailears and Torleep to secure the line while Stiffener climbs up to guide the evacuation of the prisoners.

• Pack keyholes with fluffy fabric and bits of beads to jam locks against pursuers.
• Order prisoners for descent by age and stability, sending the oldest and shakiest first and the fittest last.
• Coil heaving lines into a massive long rope for heavy-duty rappelling.

Nine strong, thin heaving lines knotted into one massive rope assist the operation.

The Bark Crew and Royal Contests

You can starve out an ill-fed occupying army by intercepting food supplies and deploying disguised guerrilla units.

Stiffener Medick and Brogalaw organize a guerrilla resistance unit known as the Bark Crew, wearing barkcloth cloaks and reed masks. They ambush Ungatt Trunn's foraging parties, strip them of weapons and provisions, and send them back empty-handed to spread fear and disrupt the enemy's food supply. The Bark Crew surrounds a twenty-five-beast foraging patrol led by the stoat Byle, confiscates their haversacks of berries, and forces them to wade neck-deep through the sea back to Salamandastron with a warning message.

• Conceal identities using barkcloth cloaks and woven reed masks.
• Ambush enemy foraging units to steal food, uniforms, and weapons.
• Force captured patrols to strip and return empty-handed to demoralize the enemy commander.

Twenty-five bluebottoms in the foraging party face interception by the Bark Crew, while a hundred and fifty Hordebeasts deployed by Ripfang and Doomeye fail an unsuccessful pincer trap.

During the Bragging challenge for King Bucko Bigbones's crown, Dotti refuses to engage in loud shouting. Instead, she responds to his bombastic boasts with polite, deflating questions and practical advice, causing the audience to laugh and prompting the king into a disqualifying physical foul. When King Bucko boasts about being born during a thunderstorm, Dotti politely wipes dust from her paw and asks if he got wet.

• Stand completely still in the center of the ring while the opponent paces and boasts.
• Ignore direct threats and focus on mocking the opponent's dramatic behavior with deadpan polite queries.
• Remain calm when physical contact is initiated to ensure the opponent is flagged for a foul.

During the Feasting challenge against King Bucko, Dotti maintains a moderate eating pace and sticks to simple items like mint tea and apples while her opponent crams massive quantities of food and wine. Eventually, the king's heavy overindulgence causes him to fall asleep at the table, resulting in a forfeit. Dotti sips clouded oatmeal water and nibbles plain bread while King Bucko gorges on pies, cakes, and several goblets of strong plum-and-beetroot wine until he falls asleep into an apple pie. Three days of strict dieting and fasting are imposed on Dotti prior to the event, and three flagons of pale cider are consumed by the helpers to bribe the head cook.

• Pace food consumption instead of wolfing down meals immediately.
• Avoid overly strong alcoholic drinks that induce sleepiness during long contests.
• Keep the opponent engaged until sheer exhaustion causes them to drop.

In the final Fighting challenge, Dotti uses boxing techniques taught by the twin hares Bobweave and Southpaw. Instead of exchanging heavy blows with the much larger King Bucko, she ducks, sweeps his legs, and uses his own charging momentum to send him crashing to the ground. When Bucko charges at Dotti with lowered head, she arches her back and delivers a sharp double blow to the back of his neck as he stumbles past.

• Avoid trading heavy blows when outmatched in size.
• Duck and weave to let the opponent's momentum carry them past or over.
• Strike vulnerable spots like the stomach and the back of the neck when the opponent is off balance.

4. Climax and Legacy

Resolving a war requires decisive single combat between leaders, psychological warfare, and the institutionalization of a permanent defense force.

Lord Brocktree challenges the wildcat tyrant Ungatt Trunn to single combat on the shore to determine the fate of Salamandastron without sacrificing the lives of his followers. Lord Brocktree fights Ungatt Trunn face-to-face on the beach, ultimately breaking the wildcat's spine in a lethal embrace. As the tide of battle turns, mercenary captains and subordinates quickly abandon or betray their superiors to save their own lives or seize power. Ripfang pushes the fox Karangool overboard into the sea during their escape attempt after Ungatt Trunn's defeat.

Victory and the Long Patrol

Secret chambers within the stronghold contain the relics, history, and resting places of past leaders, connecting current rulers to their lineage. Lord Brocktree discovers the secret vault containing the historical carvings and the empty throne meant for his father, Lord Stonepaw.

While besieged by a massive army, the defenders publicly display lavish food, sing songs of abundance, and maintain high spirits to dishearten the starving vermin below. Dotti, the hare twins, and the Guosim cook and consume elaborate meals near the second-level windows, while Log a Log Grenn sings songs about mushroom flans and meadowcream to torment the hungry vermin.

Defenders secure critical underground choke points to prevent enemy reinforcements from flanking the main fighting force. Fleetscut and Jukka the Squirrel sacrifice their lives in the underground tunnels, holding back a pack of vermin so that the main force can pass safely.

The defenders use fires, decoy attacks, and smuggled forces to trick Ungatt Trunn into splitting his army and leaving the mountain's defenses exposed. Rulango and the Bark Crew light a decoy campfire and burn ships to divert the Blue Horde's attention while Brocktree's main force enters the mountain via the tunnels.

Following the victory over the Blue Hordes, the defenders formalize a permanent military unit to patrol and protect the surrounding coasts and woodlands. Dotti becomes the first officer of the newly formed Long Patrol under Lord Brocktree at Salamandastron.

10 Key Ideas

1. Securing a stronghold against an overwhelming enemy requires extensive historical research, rapid scouting missions, and pragmatic coalition building.
2. Neutral factions can be persuaded to join a conflict not through emotional appeals, but through the promise of material plunder and captured weapons.
3. Surviving wilderness ambushes and underground escapes demands immediate tactical positioning, adherence to traditional navigational lore, and strict combat discipline.
4. Traditional children's skiprope rhymes can encode practical survival knowledge and escape routes for future generations.
5. An occupying army can be systematically dismantled through organized coastal resistance, high-altitude rope rescues, and strategic victories in royal challenge contests.
6. The Bark Crew uses barkcloth cloaks and reed masks to ambush foraging parties, strip them of provisions, and disrupt the enemy's food supply.
7. During the Bragging and Fighting challenges, Dotti uses calm deflating questions and precise boxing techniques to defeat King Bucko Bigbones without matching his raw size.
8. Resolving a war requires decisive single combat between leaders, such as Lord Brocktree breaking the wildcat tyrant Ungatt Trunn's spine on the beach.
9. While besieged by a massive army, the defenders publicly display lavish food and sing songs of abundance to dishearten the starving vermin below.
10. Following the victory over the Blue Hordes, the defenders formalize a permanent military unit known as the Long Patrol to protect the surrounding coasts and woodlands.