Watership Down is a novel by Richard Adams. It follows the story of a group of rabbits that escape the destruction of their warren. The story changes viewpoints sometimes, but it is usually through the eyes of a rabbit named Hazel. Hazel lives in the Sandleford warren and has a brother named Fiver (or sometimes called ‘Hrairoo’ in the Lapine language of the book). Fiver has prophetic visions and feelings and one day, predicts the destruction of his own warren at the hands of humans.
Hazel believes his brother and tries to convince their Chief Rabbit, the Threarah, that Fiver is right and the rabbits must evacuate. The Threarah, of course, refuses to listen. Fiver and Hazel organise a plan to escape from the warren the following night. They are joined by a member of the ‘Owsla’ (the warren ‘policemen’, consisting of the smartest, bravest and strongest members of the warren) named Bigwig, or ‘Thlayli’ in Lapine. More rabbits outside of the Owsla also join them, who are Blackberry, Dandelion, Buckthorn, Acorn, Hawkbit, Speedwell, Silver and Pipkin (or ‘Hlaoroo’ in Lapine). They set out on a journey to find a warren to join or make one of their own. They find a warren, but Fiver prophesises that the warren is not safe and that the rabbits are in a state of insanity and fakeness. They do not believe him, but soon after, Bigwig gets caught in a snare trap.
Fiver says that the rabbits of the warren try to make themselves ‘better’ than other rabbits, since most of their members were snared and killed. Soon after, they leave the warren with one of their rabbits, named Strawberry. They create their own warren at Watership Down (a hill/down in Hampshire, England) but are faced with the problem of getting does (female rabbits) to grow the warren. Some rabbits set out to another warren to try and convince some does to come back with them, but the rabbits of that warren are violent and do not allow any rabbits to leave.
Bigwig sets out on a separate expedition after to get the does out of that warren and succeeds, but with consequences. Soon after, the warren grows bigger and there are plenty of rabbits. Watership Down is a very good novel with plenty of story and interesting characters. It has the lesson of the impact of humans on animals, as you learn when Hazel and Fiver find out that the Sandleford warren was actually destroyed, as Fiver predicted. The author even includes stories from the history of the rabbits, such as the stories of ‘El-ahrairah’ (‘The Prince With A Thousand Enemies’ translated out of Lapine). It has scenes of all sorts such as sadness, celebration and action and is a novel worth reading, since it is a classic from the 1970s. I highly recommend this novel.Also, the Lapine language is not actually used in this book. Richard Adams made up the words from the language used to add the sense of ‘rabbitness’ to the book.
