Storytelling in Watership Down

Rum thing, this myth about a rabbit prince...

At church, I’ve been reflecting on story and mythology and Scripture in my homilies for the past month or so, beginning with a Tolkien-inspired “We need the old stories—and the new” near the beginning of Great Lent, continuing with a reflection on “some of the old stories that we need”, and then today reflecting on “the story of St. Mary of Egypt” inspired, in part, by Don Beck’s question in

The Reading Room

on what my thoughts are on the mythology in Richard Adams’ Watership Down.

My thoughts on Watership Down, as I related them at the beginning and the end of my homily on St. Mary of Egypt, are more about the rabbits’ storytelling—and, by extension, our own human habit of storytelling—than about the actual contents of the mythology in the book, probably because I’m more interested generally in the deep truths of storytelling that I see in the book than in the specifics of the world-building in Watership Down—although that world-building, as Don notes in a reply to one of my comments, “is excellent (which seems odd to say, as it is really our world—a field in England—but through a rabbit's lens).”

As I note in my homily, one of the reasons that I tend to see Watership Down as “Lord of the Rings, but with rabbits instead of hobbits” is actually the storytelling that is common to both: it’s not unusual for either the rabbits or the hobbits, whenever they stop for a rest or a drink or to eat, to call for a story—which is primarily what the rabbits call for—or a poem or a song—both of which are usually narrative in form, but which are what the hobbits are more likely to request. Tolkien tends to work these interludes into his main narrative more naturally—or at least less overtly—than Adams does, but both, I think are harkening back to an earlier age when storytelling and song were more integral and natural and amateur aspects of our lives than what they have become now that the “entertainment industry” has become so all-pervasive.

But if Adams’ insertion of storytelling into his narrative is more explicit than Tolkien’s, it does not therefore follow that it is unnatural—and Adams’ articulation of the purpose behind each story told in the narrative is instructive. The first of his myths, “The Story of the Blessing of El-ahrairah” (the rabbits’ mythical first leader and forbearer, whose name means, in the rabbits’ speech, “The Prince with the Thousand Enemies”) is told at their leader Hazel’s invitation as the group of exhausted rabbit refugees is in danger of collapsing into a state of fearful paralysis, as they find themselves without refuge in unfamiliar, frightening, and dangerous territory. Hazel realizes that “if they lay brooding, unable to feed or go underground, all their troubles would come crowding into their hearts, their fears would mount and they might very likely scatter, or even try to return to the warren.” So, Hazel says casually, “Come on, Dandelion, tell us a story. I know you’re handy that way. Pipkin here can’t wait to hear it.” So, Dandelion tells the exhausted group the story of how the creator, Frith, set all the other animals against the overconfident El-ahrairah and his over-populous people, to prevent the rabbits from becoming too numerous and eating everything, but then takes pity on the cowering El-ahrairah and, since he refuses to come out of his burrow, blesses the rabbit’s bottom—his back legs and tail—the only part of him still sticking of his hole, saying, “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 will 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.” The story thus serves simultaneously to acknowledge the dangerous position the rabbits are in as something common to all rabbit experience—they are not alone—while also reassuring them that there is hope—as there always has been—and thus inspiring them to action.

Without going into detail about the rest of the stories and the rabbit mythology in this amazing book, I will simply note two things: the subsequent stories are just as aptly inserted into the narrative, for similarly brilliant reasons, and thus are equally instructive examples of how we humans likewise use stories. And, since Don already alludes, in his excellent post, to Hazel’s death (rabbits lives are rather short, of course), it is worth pointing out that Hazel’s being invited by El-ahrairah himself to join his “Owsla” (which I would gloss as “royal guard”) turns the mythology into reality in a way that is (whether intended or not) both subtly and brilliantly Christian. For this last part of the story, while an epilogue, is narrated not as a myth being retold, but rather as the last part of the novel itself—in other words, the myth has entered the story and become a part of it, which rather neatly parallels the comment C.S. Lewis’ hardened atheist colleague put to him, which led to Lewis’ conversion: “Rum thing, [this myth about] a Dying God. It almost looks as if it has really happened once.”