More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I want to emphasize that Watership Down was never intended to be some sort of allegory or parable. It is simply the story about rabbits made up and told in the car.
“And we’ll eat it,” replied Toadflax. “Cowslips are for Owsla†—don’t you know that? If you don’t, we can easily teach you.”
Owslas are nobles.
THIS IDEALLY SITUATED ESTATE, COMPRISING SIX ACRES OF EXCELLENT BUILDING LAND, IS TO BE DEVELOPED WITH HIGH CLASS MODERN RESIDENCES BY SUTCH AND MARTIN, LIMITED, OF NEWBURY, BERKS.
Fiver gets a premonition about Watership Down’s destruction
The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe, Like a thick midnight-fog, moved there so slow, He did not stay, nor go. Henry Vaughan, The World
What am I lying here for? . . . We are lying here as though we had a chance of enjoying a quiet time. . . . Am I waiting until I become a little older? Xenophon, The Anabasis
“after a time the grass began to grow thin and the rabbits wandered everywhere, multiplying and eating as they went. “Then Frith said to El-ahrairah, ‘Prince Rabbit, if you cannot control your people, I shall find ways to control them. So mark what I say.’ But El-ahrairah would not listen and he said to Frith, ‘My people are the strongest in the world, for they breed faster and eat more than any of the other people. And this shows how much they love Lord Frith, for of all the animals they are the most responsive to his warmth and brightness. You must realize, my lord, how important they are
...more
‘El-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.’
Buck rabbits on their own seldom or never go in for serious digging. This is the natural job of a doe making a home for her litter before they are born, and then her buck helps her.
He seemed detached, almost bored, but perfectly friendly. His lassitude, his great size and beautiful, well-groomed appearance, his unhurried air of having all he wanted and of being unaffected by the newcomers one way or the other—all these presented Hazel with a problem unlike anything he had had to deal with before.
Cowslip
“Thlayli!” said Hazel, stamping. “Thlayli! Listen! You’re in a snare—a snare! What did they say in the Owsla? Come on—think. How can we help you?”
“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today,”
Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then one day the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day the farmer thought, ‘I could increase those rabbits: make them part of my farm—their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches?
They needed to think what was best to be done. But they hit on it quite soon. To bring us into the warren and tell us nothing. Don’t you see? The farmer only sets so many snares at a time, and if one rabbit dies, the others will live that much longer.
Who wants to hear about brave deeds when he’s ashamed of his own, and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he’s deceiving?
It was Captain Holly of the Sandleford Owsla.
The old Warren is destroyed
“It comes from men,” said Holly. “All other elil do what they have to do and Frith moves them as he moves us. They live on the earth and they need food. Men will never rest till they’ve spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.
Then one of them got a spade and began filling in the mouths of all the holes he could find. Every hole he came to, he cut out the turf above and pushed it into the hole. That puzzled me, because with ferrets they want to drive the rabbits out. But I was expecting that they’d leave a few holes open and net them:
“I heard the commotion beginning before I smelled the stuff myself. The does seemed to get it first and some of them began trying to get out. But the ones who had litters wouldn’t leave the kittens and they were attacking any rabbit who came near them. They wanted to fight—to protect the kittens, you know. Very soon the runs were crammed with rabbits clawing and clambering over each other. They went up the runs they were accustomed to use and found them blocked. Some managed to turn round, but they couldn’t get back because of the rabbits coming up. And then the runs began to be blocked lower
...more
It was very noisy and it was yellow—as yellow as charlock: and in front there was a great silver, shining thing that it held in its huge front paws. I don’t know how to describe it to you. It looked like Inlé, but it was broad and not so bright. And this thing—how can I tell you—it tore the field to bits. It destroyed the field.”
Bluebell had been saying that he knew the men hated us for raiding their crops and gardens, and Toadflax answered, ‘That wasn’t why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.’
I told him that we’d had a bad time and come a long way and that we were looking for some rabbits from our warren—Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig. As soon as I said those names this rabbit turned to the others and cried, ‘I knew it! Tear them to pieces!’ And they all set on us. One of them got me by the ear and ripped it up before Bluebell could pull him off. We were fighting the lot of them. I was so much taken by surprise that I couldn’t do a great deal at first. But the funny thing was that although they were so big and yelling for our blood, they couldn’t fight at all:
Cowslip attempts to kill the silver lane survivors but they can’t fight.
Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss.
The wing trails like a banner in defeat, No more to use the sky for ever but live with famine and pain a few days. He is strong and pain is worse to the strong incapacity is worse. No one but death the redeemer will humble that head, The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes. Robinson Jeffers, Hurt Hawks
They had learned a good deal about elil from some source or other and seemed sure that few wild rabbits survived for long. Hazel realized that although they were glad to talk to him and welcomed his visit because it brought a little excitement and change into their monotonous life, it was not within their capacity to take a decision and act on it.
The rabbits meet pets
We’ve all got to stop running one day, you know. They say Frith knows all the rabbits, every one.”
“That’s the really frightening part. The Owsla—well, you can’t imagine it unless you’ve been there. The Chief is a rabbit named Woundwort: General Woundwort, they call him. I’ll tell you more about him in a minute. Then under him there are captains—each one in charge of a Mark—and each captain has his own officers and sentries.
General Woundwort came, he had made them move to Efrafa and then he’d worked out this whole system of concealment and perfected it until rabbits in Efrafa were as safe as stars in the sky. ‘Most rabbits here die of old age, unless the Owsla kill them off,’ she said. ‘But the trouble is, there are more rabbits now than the warren can hold.
‘Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill, they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.’
The kind of ideas that have become natural to many male human beings in thinking of females—ideas of protection, fidelity, romantic love and so on—are, of course, unknown to rabbits, although rabbits certainly do form exclusive attachments much more frequently than most people realize. However, they are not romantic and it came naturally to Hazel and Holly to consider the two Nuthanger does simply as breeding stock for the warren. This was what they had risked their lives for.
It was not long before a weasel picked up the scent of the blood and followed it. The little rabbit cowered in the grass while his mother was killed before his eyes. He made no attempt to run, but the weasel, its hunger satisfied, left him alone and made off through the bushes. Several hours later a kind old schoolmaster from Overton, walking through the fields, came upon Woundwort nuzzling the cold, still body and crying. He carried him home to his own kitchen and saved his life, feeding him with milk from a nasal dropper until he was old enough to eat bran and greenstuff.
On his advice, the runs and burrows of the various Marks were not connected underground, so that disease or poison, if they came, would spread less readily. Conspiracy would also spread less readily.
They had been following it but had not yet sighted their quarry when suddenly a strange rabbit had burst in upon them as they were nearing the edge of some woodland. They had, of course, tried to stop him and at that moment the fox, which had apparently been following him closely, had come from the open combe beyond and killed poor Mallow
Bigwig baits the fox into the efrafans
A small voice spoke in Bigwig’s mind. “Your storm, Thlayli-rah. Use it.”
Even the sound of the digging, clearer already, only set him thinking of the best way to sell his life as dearly as he could. But what else was there for any of them to do?
Woundwort, teeth sunk in his back, was snuffling and choking. Though Bigwig did not know it, his earlier blows had torn Woundwort across the nose. His nostrils were full of his own blood, and with jaws closed in Bigwig’s fur he could not draw his breath. A moment more and he let go his hold.
Vervain knew that the impossible had happened. The General had come off worst. What he was saying was, “Cover up for me. Don’t let the others know.”
All of a sudden Captain Campion dashed round the corner of the hanger. From the open down beyond came a single, high scream. At the same moment two strange rabbits, running together, leaped the bank into the wood and disappeared down one of the blocked tunnels. “Run!” cried Campion, stamping. “Run for your lives!”
Then it sprang forward; and even as they ran, his Owsla could hear the General’s raging, squealing cry, “Come back, you fools! Dogs aren’t dangerous! Come back and fight!”
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only... Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill
“What d’you reckon t’was, then, Doctor?” “Well, it might have been a big rat, I suppose, or perhaps a stoat. Something he went for that put up a fight.”
Well, we’ve been lucky devils both And there’s no need of pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.— Robert Graves, Two Fusiliers
Bad news travels fast. Down to the Belt and beyond, the rumor spread that the terrible General Woundwort and his Owsla had been cut to pieces on Watership Down and that what was left of them was trailing southward in poor shape, with little heart to keep alert. The Thousand began to close in—stoats, a fox, even a tomcat from some farm or other. At every halt yet another rabbit was not to be found and no one could remember seeing what had happened to him. One of these was Vervain. It had been plain from the start that he had nothing left and, indeed, there was little reason for him to return to
...more
“I thought he’d killed me,” he said. “No more fighting for me—I’ve had enough. And you—your plan worked, Hazel-rah, did it? Well done. Tell me what it was. And how did you get back from the farm?”
Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security.
“Bigwig was right when he said he wasn’t like a rabbit at all,” said Holly. “He was a fighting animal—fierce as a rat or a dog. He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running. He was brave, all right. But it wasn’t natural; and that’s why it was bound to finish him in the end.
“He isn’t dead, you know,” broke in Groundsel. The others were silent. “He hasn’t stopped running,” said Groundsel passionately. “Did you see his body? No. Did anyone? No.
“He beat Woundwort, you know,” said Silver. “He had him beat before the dog came. That was what I was going to say just now, but it was as well I didn’t, I suppose.”
And yet there endured the legend that somewhere out over the down there lived a great and solitary rabbit, a giant who drove the elil like mice and sometimes went to silflay in the sky.
“You’ve been feeling tired,” said the stranger, “but I can do something about that. I’ve come to ask whether you’d care to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you and you’ll enjoy it. If you’re ready, we might go along now.”
He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.
