Sir Harry the Muse was a very poetic male owl, but he insisted on using his rhyming ability only in casual conversation. He first appeared when Matthias and his crew were trying to climb up a cliff. The fox they were tracking, Slagar the Cruel, had cleverly pulled up the rope ladders that he and his band had used to scale the cliffs. In exchange for food, Sir Harry flew up and let down the ladders.
Later, when Matthias' party had progressed further, two buzzards attacked the trackers and successfully lifted a shrew into the air. The owl reappeared almost out of nowhere and head-butted the birds, making the shrew fall from their talons. He also brought up the fallen bridge that had spanned The Abyss until Slagar cut it down. When the searchers captured Threeclaws and four other weasels, Harry took them down south to be released far away.
Later, when the heroes had returned to Redwall Abbey, he was elected the Leader and Poetry Instructor of the Sparra colony, and repeatedly resigned because of the Sparra dialect.
He was very fond of food, particularly cake, and ate as much as Basil Stag Hare, leading to Basil's jealousy and calling Sir Harry, very tongue in cheek, a "great feedbag."
Trivia[]
- Sir Harry is named after Sir Harry Livermore, a lawyer friend of Brian Jacques from Liverpool. He requested to be a rat character. However, Brian claimed he had "been a rat long enough," and made him an owl.
- Sir Harry usually talks in rhyme, though a infamous incident where he doesn't is when he asks Matthias and his friends, "Cake? Do you have any cake?"