Furgle Woodvole the Hermit

Fergle the Hermit was a wise old mossflower inhabitant who met the squirrel Samkim and Arula the mole while they were searching for the vermin that had stolen Martin's sword from Redwall Abbey. He travels with them a short ways and finds the body of one of the vermin(named Thura)who had apparently died of some sort of sickness. He then left young Samkim and Arula and reported to the Abbey that it was Dryditch Fever that had killed the creature. Thus begins an epidemic that takes the lives of many Redwall citizens and is only finished off when the baby dormouse Dumble, riding in a haversack carried by an eagle, brings the flowers of Icetor from the mountains in the north.