The Pilgrim

Role, aliases, and summary hidden by structure-only view.

also known as the old man, the wanderer

catalyst/helper

Spindly, lame, girded-loined old man who appears in the desert, marks the stone covering the shelter entrance, and cryptically encourages Francis's vocation before departing.

In A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr., 1960)