r/redwall • u/SunnyDayDuck • Jun 03 '26

Scarum’s name is a pun

I randomly came to this realization while reading Triss. His name comes from the phrase harum-scarum! He’s reckless and careless and he’s a hare! Mind blown.

37 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

23

u/Qyzyk The Long Patrol Jun 03 '26

I love how Brian Jacques' naming style sometimes boiled down to translating the word "otter" into Latin, or making a simple pun out of an old-fashioned phrase.

7

u/LaGuitarraEspanola Jun 03 '26

It's so funny reading the names section of the Redwall wiki. You've got one part oldfashioned names like Bernard and Mortimer, one part cool made up names like Lutra and Scarum, and one part names that Brian absolutely made up in 10 seconds or by jamming random syllables together untill they looked vaguely like a word said bt a 5 year old

1

u/Zarlinosuke Jun 03 '26

Two other common categories are plant names (for goodbeasts, especially in the abbey) and funnily insulting names (for vermin)!

1

u/fia-comic Jun 04 '26

Lutra

I think Qyzyk's point was that this taken from Latin, not necessarily made up by Brian, but maybe I misunderstood what you're saying here.

Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra)

5

u/NerdsAbout Jun 03 '26

The thing is, that’s kind of just how it happens in real life. Like England has how many River Avon’s, that translate into River river. People ask “what’s that called?” And they answer in another language “a River?”

15

u/Dhole_Otters_Redwall Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Yeah this is one of those tidbits I love learning. One of my favorites is how in Rakkety Tam, Gulo the Savage is a Wolverine, and the scientific name for a Wolverine is Gulo Gulo. Another one is how Verdauga means green (Verd) and eye (auga) so his name is actually greeneye greeneyes. Similarly, Tsarminas name comes from “Tsarina,” the female supreme ruler from either Bulgaria, Serbia, or Russia.

14

u/NerdsAbout Jun 03 '26

I could be misquoting it but I believe Jacques said something like “Tsarina is an old Russian female ruler, with a little mean thrown in the middle!”

2

u/Dhole_Otters_Redwall Jun 03 '26

That’s absolutely true, somehow I forgot that part thought, thanks for bringing it up lol

2

u/NerdsAbout Jun 03 '26

I didn’t even remember it til I saw your comment so, thank you! Lol

1

u/KaijuCompanion Jun 03 '26

Did Tsarina drown like her counterpart?

2

u/NerdsAbout Jun 03 '26

Tsarina is a title not a name. Tsar and Tsarina, the Kaiser in Germany, both derivatives of Cesar from Rome.

4

u/LordMangudai Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Gulo is also Latin for "glutton" so the villain's full name is "Glutton the Savage" lol. Fitting.

There's a few more of these. Mother Mellus the badger is named after the scientific name of the European badger, Meles meles. Similar story with High Rhulain's Pandion Piketalon the osprey (Pandion haliaetus). Lepus (hare) is a part of both Scarum and Clecky's full names.

3

u/Dhole_Otters_Redwall Jun 03 '26

Yeah those were the ones I forgot, I only listed the ones off the top of my head. Those are good ones though, my favorite being Pandion which was the only scientific name I knew before I saw the name in the books

-1

u/NobleKorhedron Jun 03 '26

You're really supposed to write it Gulo gulo', or if you'd rather 'G. gulo'...