Watership Down

Summary

Watership Down is the epic of a small band of rabbits who leave their home to found a new one. In the Sandleford warren in Berkshire, a small, nervous rabbit named Fiver, who has visions, sees the field covered in blood and begs his brother Hazel to warn the Chief Rabbit, the Threarah, who dismisses them. Hazel leads a handful of followers away by night, among them Bigwig, a strong officer of the Owsla, the warren's guard; clever Blackberry; Dandelion, the fast runner and storyteller; Silver; and tiny Pipkin. They float the weakest across the river Enborne on a board, cross a road and a heath, and are welcomed by a warren of large, sleek, well-fed rabbits led by Cowslip, who make art and poetry but will not answer questions about where they go. Fiver senses death there, and when Bigwig is caught in a wire snare the truth comes out: a farmer feeds the warren and harvests it, and the rabbits have learned not to speak of it. Freed, Bigwig and the band move on with Strawberry, a rabbit of that warren, and climb to the high, quiet chalk down of Watership. Two survivors, Holly and Bluebell, arrive with the news that men gassed and bulldozed Sandleford for a housing development. The new warren has no does. Hazel befriends Kehaar, an injured black-headed gull, who scouts and finds Efrafa, a large warren run as a police state by General Woundwort, where rabbits are marked, confined and kept underground. A raid on Nuthanger Farm frees hutch rabbits but leaves Hazel shot in the leg; Fiver finds him in a drain by following a dream. Bigwig enters Efrafa in disguise as a would-be officer, wins the trust of the doe Hyzenthlay and the mutilated prisoner Blackavar, and in a thunderstorm leads a breakout to the river, where Kehaar attacks the pursuers and the rabbits escape on a moored punt. Woundwort follows to Watership Down with his army. While Bigwig holds a tunnel against Woundwort, Hazel goes to Nuthanger, gnaws through the farm dog's rope, and leads the dog back to the down, where it routs the Efrafans; Woundwort stands to fight and is never seen again. Hazel, caught by a cat, is rescued by Lucy, the farmer's daughter, and taken back to the down in a doctor's car. Peace follows, with a shared warren at Caesar's Belt under Captain Campion. In the epilogue the aged Hazel is invited by the Black Rabbit of Inlé to join his Owsla and goes gently. Throughout, Dandelion and others tell tales of the rabbit trickster-hero El-ahrairah. Rejected by several publishers, the book was issued by Rex Collings in London in November 1972 and won the Carnegie Medal.

Plot or Argument

• Part I: The Journey

  Fiver's vision, the flight from Sandleford, the crossing of the Enborne and the heath, the tale of Frith's blessing, the stay at Cowslip's warren, Bigwig in the snare, and the climb to Watership Down.

• Part II: On Watership Down

  Digging the Honeycomb; Holly and Bluebell's account of Sandleford's destruction; Kehaar the gull; the raid on Nuthanger Farm, Hazel's wound and Fiver's dream that finds him; Holly's failed embassy to Efrafa.

• Part III: Efrafa

  Bigwig infiltrates Woundwort's warren, plots with Hyzenthlay and Blackavar, and leads the does out in a thunderstorm to the river and the punt while Kehaar strikes the patrol.

• Part IV: Hazel-rah

  Woundwort's attack on Watership Down, Bigwig's stand in the tunnel, Hazel's release of the Nuthanger dog, Woundwort's disappearance, Lucy's rescue of Hazel, and the peace with Efrafa.

• Epilogue

  Years later, in a flourishing warren, the old Hazel is visited by the Black Rabbit of Inlé and leaves his body to follow him.

• Interpolated tales of El-ahrairah

  Told at intervals: the Blessing of El-ahrairah by Frith, King Darzin's lettuce, the Trial of El-ahrairah, El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé, and Rowsby Woof and the Fairy Wogdog.

Characters

• Hazel, leader, later Hazel-rah

  Thoughtful young buck who becomes Chief Rabbit by courage, fairness and listening to others.

• Fiver, seer

  Hazel's small brother, whose visions warn of danger and guide the band.

• Bigwig (Thlayli), warrior

  Big former Owsla officer who goes undercover in Efrafa and holds the tunnel against Woundwort.

• Blackberry, planner

  Clever rabbit who works out the raft, the punt and other tricks.

• Dandelion, storyteller

  Swift runner who tells the band's tales of El-ahrairah.

• Pipkin, youngest of the band

  Small, frightened rabbit devoted to Hazel.

• Holly, former Captain of the Owsla

  Officer who first tried to arrest the deserters and later joins them after Sandleford falls.

• Kehaar, black-headed gull

  Wounded, blustering seabird who repays the rabbits' care as scout and ally.

• General Woundwort, ruler of Efrafa

  Huge, fearless, tyrannical founder of a warren run by marks, patrols and fear.

• Hyzenthlay, Efrafan doe

  Wise doe with a touch of Fiver's insight who helps plan the escape.

• Cowslip, rabbit of the snared warren

  Polished host whose warren lives fed and silent beside the farmer's wires.

• El-ahrairah, folk hero of the rabbits

  Prince with a Thousand Enemies, trickster of the rabbits' legends.

Lessons

• Leadership that listens

  Hazel is neither the strongest nor the cleverest rabbit in the band, but he trusts Fiver's visions, uses Blackberry's ideas and Bigwig's strength, and takes the dangerous jobs himself. Woundwort, by contrast, commands by fear and cannot imagine an enemy who will not fight on his terms.

  • Why do the others follow Hazel when Bigwig is stronger?
  • How does Hazel's leadership differ from Woundwort's?
  • What does Hazel do when he makes a mistake, as in the Nuthanger raid?

• The comfortable trap

  Cowslip's warren has food, shelter and poetry, but its rabbits have bought comfort by agreeing not to see the snares. Adams shows how a community can grow polished and sad by refusing to name the truth about its own life.

  • Why does Fiver refuse to stay at Cowslip's warren?
  • Why will no rabbit there answer a question beginning with where?

• Order and freedom

  Efrafa is safe from elil because Woundwort controls every movement, but no one there may choose anything. The book weighs three kinds of warren: the careless one at Sandleford, the deceived one at Cowslip's, and the tyrannous one at Efrafa, against the free and cooperative warren Hazel builds.

  • Is Efrafa a bad place to live, or only a bad place to be free?
  • What does Hazel's warren have that none of the others do?
  • Why does the peace at the end place Efrafa under Campion rather than destroying it?

• Stories that hold a people together

  The rabbits carry no possessions, only their tales of El-ahrairah, and they tell them when they are most afraid. By the epilogue Hazel's own deeds have become stories, and it is hard to tell them apart from the legends.

  • Why does Dandelion tell a story on the first dangerous nights of the journey?
  • How does the tale of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit prepare for the epilogue?

Context

Adams set the story in the real landscape of north Hampshire and Berkshire, around Sandleford, Nuthanger Farm, Watership Down and the river Test, and based the rabbits' habits on the naturalist R. M. Lockley's The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964). Postwar Britain saw rapid building on farmland, and the destruction of Sandleford for a housing estate reflects that. Adams drew on his wartime service: he said Hazel was modelled on an officer he served under in 1944, and the rabbits' comradeship and danger recall soldiers in the field. Each chapter opens with an epigraph from writers such as Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Malory, Bunyan and Tennyson.

Composition

The story began as tales Adams told his daughters Juliet and Rosamond on car journeys, and the book is dedicated to them. He wrote it down over about eighteen months, invented the rabbit language Lapine for it, and saw it rejected by several publishers before the small firm of Rex Collings published it in November 1972. Macmillan issued it in the United States in 1974.

Reception

It won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and became a best-seller in Britain and America, read by adults as much as children. Martin Rosen's animated film of 1978 was a major success, and later television adaptations followed. Adams returned to the rabbits in Tales from Watership Down (1996).

Comparisons

• the-aeneid

  Both follow refugees fleeing a destroyed home, guided by prophecy, through false resting places toward a new settlement, and both end with war to secure wives and a future for the new people.

• the-odyssey

  Hazel's band meets a seductive land of comfort and forgetting at Cowslip's warren, as Odysseus's crew meets the Lotus-eaters, and survives by cunning more than force.

• animal-farm

  Both use animal societies to examine political order: Orwell satirises a revolution become tyranny, while Adams sets Woundwort's police-state warren against a free one founded by consent.

• the-wind-in-the-willows

  Two English classics of the southern countryside with talking animals, though Grahame's riverbank is a gentle refuge and Adams's downland is a place of real predators and death.

• the-lord-of-the-rings

  Both give a small people an invented language, a legendary past and a perilous journey, and both close with a departure into death or the West that is gentle rather than tragic.

• the-jungle-book

  Kipling and Adams both give animal societies their own laws, councils and lore, and both make leadership in those societies earned rather than inherited.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Each time Hazel trusts Fiver's warnings, and the one time the others nearly ignore them at Cowslip's warren.
• The epigraphs at the head of each chapter, and how each one comments on what follows.
• Where the tales of El-ahrairah are told, and how each tale matches the danger the band is facing.
• How Woundwort's Efrafa is organised: Marks, Owsla patrols, Silflay at set times, and the Council Police.
• The help the rabbits receive from creatures outside their kind: Kehaar, the mouse Hazel saves, the dog, and the girl Lucy.

Key terms and names

Owsla

A warren's guard of strong rabbits around the Chief Rabbit. Bigwig and Holly both served in Sandleford's, and Efrafa's is a secret police.

Tharn

Lapine for frozen and stupefied with fear, the state rabbits fall into before headlights or a predator.

Elil

The thousand enemies of rabbits: foxes, stoats, hawks, cats, dogs and men.

Silflay

To go above ground to feed; in Efrafa it is allowed only by Mark and at fixed hours.

El-ahrairah

The Prince with a Thousand Enemies, the trickster hero of rabbit legend whose cunning Hazel's band imitates.

The Black Rabbit of Inlé

The cold, silent figure of death in rabbit lore, who in the epilogue comes kindly for the old Hazel.

Efrafa

General Woundwort's large, hidden warren, safe from predators but governed by strict marks and fear.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does Fiver see at the start of the book, and why does the Threarah refuse to act on it?
2. Comprehension What is the secret of Cowslip's warren, and how does the band discover it?
3. Comprehension How does Hazel use the Nuthanger dog to save the warren from Woundwort?
4. Interpretation Why does Adams interrupt the action with stories of El-ahrairah? Choose one tale and explain how it fits the moment it is told.
5. Interpretation Bigwig could have challenged Hazel for leadership. Why does he follow him instead, and when does he show he has chosen to?
6. Interpretation Woundwort is brave and has kept his rabbits safe. What makes him a villain?
7. Big Question Is it better to live in a safe community where you have no freedom or in a free one full of danger?

Faith Connections

• Jeremiah 6:14 (Scripture)

  The prophet condemns those who say peace, peace, when there is no peace. Cowslip's warren, comfortable and silent about the snares, lives by exactly that kind of false peace, and Fiver plays the unwelcome prophet.

• Genesis 12:1 (Scripture)

  God calls Abram to leave his country for a land he will be shown. Hazel's band leaves Sandleford with no clear destination, trusting Fiver's sense that a high, safe place lies ahead.

• Mark 10:42-44 (Scripture)

  Jesus contrasts rulers who lord it over others with the one who leads by serving. Woundwort rules Efrafa by force, while Hazel takes the risky tasks, such as the trip to free the dog, upon himself.

• Virgil, Aeneid, Books II-III (Great Conversation)

  Aeneas flees burning Troy with a remnant of his people and is turned back from false resting places by omens until he reaches the land promised to him. Hazel's flight from Sandleford and his refusal to settle at Cowslip's warren follow the same founding pattern.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A community can fail by ignoring warnings, as Sandleford does, by living with a hidden evil for the sake of comfort, as Cowslip's warren does, or by trading freedom for safety, as Efrafa does. Hazel's warren survives because its leader listens to the weak, shares danger, and joins each member's gift to the common good. Therefore the strongest society is not the most controlled but the one bound by trust, courage and truthful speech.

Rhetorical device: epigraph. Every chapter opens with a quotation from a writer such as Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Malory or Bunyan, setting the rabbits' adventures beside the great human stories of war, exile and courage.

Debate: Resolved: Hazel was right to offer Woundwort peace before the siege rather than preparing only for battle.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Compare Hazel and Woundwort as leaders using three scenes, and argue what Adams believes makes a rabbit, or a person, fit to lead.

Comparison with Animal Farm: Both Efrafa and Animal Farm are animal societies that become tyrannies. Compare how each one controls its members and argue which book offers more hope that such tyranny can be resisted.

Medical Lens

Medicine is not a subject of the novel, but its attention to fear and injury interests a clinical reader. Fiver's visions come in trance-like states and dreams that leave him exhausted, and the book treats them as true foresight, not illness. Adams describes being tharn, the rabbit's freezing in terror before headlights or danger, with a naturalist's precision; readers sometimes connect it with the freeze response in modern stress physiology, a comparison the book itself does not make. Holly and Bluebell arrive from the gassed Sandleford warren shaken and half-incoherent, and Holly's account of the poisoned runs is often read as a portrait of survivor shock, an interpretation in keeping with Adams's own war service. Physical wounds are frequent: Bigwig is half-strangled in the snare, Hazel is shot in the leg at Nuthanger and nursed back, and Blackavar's ears are torn as a punishment in Efrafa.

• Part I, opening chapters

  Fiver's vision of the field covered in blood and his collapse into fear before the flight from Sandleford.

  Dreams Nightmares Altered States
• Part I, the snare at Cowslip's warren

  Bigwig is caught by a wire noose and nearly dies before the others dig out the peg.

  WAR Wounds
• Part II, Holly's story

  Holly and Bluebell, exhausted and shocked, tell how men gassed the Sandleford warren and filled in the runs.

  Trauma Shell Shock Pharmacology Poisons
• Part II, the Nuthanger raid

  Hazel is shot by the farmer and lies wounded in a drain until Fiver, led by a dream, finds him.

  WAR Wounds Dreams Nightmares

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write a new tale of El-ahrairah in the style of Dandelion, in which the Prince outwits an enemy the rabbits have only recently met, such as a car or a gull.

• Classroom

  Using an Ordnance Survey map of north Hampshire, trace the route from Sandleford to Watership Down and mark each stopping place.

• Essay

  Compare the warrens of Sandleford, Cowslip, Efrafa and Watership Down as four kinds of society, and argue which flaw is most dangerous.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Hazel and Woundwort at the parley before the siege, then a second one in which Woundwort accepts Hazel's offer.

Further Reading

• Tales from Watership Down, Richard Adams

• The Private Life of the Rabbit, R. M. Lockley

• The Day Gone By, Richard Adams

  Adams's autobiography.

• Shardik, Richard Adams