Watership Down

The Honeycomb is the great central hall of the new warren on Watership Down. The hall is the idea of Strawberry, who remembers the design of a similar hall at Cowslip’s warren. It’s a gathering place where the rabbits can socialize safely underground. The Honeycomb symbolizes Hazel’s belief in cooperation, friendship, and ingenuity.

The “iron road” is a set of railroad tracks that confront Hazel’s rabbits during their journeys to Efrafa. When escaping from that warren, Holly’s team crosses the tracks and are saved when their pursuers are stopped by a train that, to them, is “full of fire and smoke and light and it roared and beat on the metal lines until the ground shook beneath it” (314). The train kills one of the Efrafa enforcers. Thereafter, Hazel’s rabbits bivouac beyond the tracks, which define the limit of Efrafan patrols. The iron road symbolizes the tremendous power of the human enemy, but it also highlights the ingenuity of Hazel’s rabbits, who use even dangerous, alien things to accomplish their goals.

Lapine is the language of the rabbits. Part of the author’s efforts at world-building—which also include extensive descriptions of warrens and landscapes—Lapine words get sprinkled into the text, so that, by story’s end, many readers can manage a quick conversation in the language. Lapine is entirely an invention of the author, who developed it while regaling his daughters with stories about Hazel’s group. The book contains a glossary of Lapine words used in the novel.

An Owsla is a “group of strong or clever rabbits—second-year or older—surrounding the Chief Rabbit and his doe and exercising authority” (6 fn.). Some Owsla manage their warrens fairly, as with Hazel’s warren, but more often, they lord it over the weaker rabbits. While searching for a new home and for does to help populate it, Hazel and his rabbits interact with other warrens whose Owsla are corrupt or tyrannical. The Owsla represent the various ways, most of them deeply flawed, by which rabbits govern themselves.

Though Hazel resents the Owsla, as a new leader he finds he needs such a group to help him keep order among the young bucks he leads. This puts Hazel in the awkward position of compromising his ideals. He resolves this in part by having Bigwig, a large, gruff, but fair-minded rabbit, do the enforcing under Hazel’s watchful control. Other rabbits become members of Hazel’s deliberately relaxed Owsla, including Silver, Holly, and Blackavar.

A warren is a colony of rabbits. Usually located on a hillside to avoid flooding, a warren contains burrows linked by tunnels that open onto grassy areas crisscrossed by streams. Members include male rabbits, called bucks, and females, called does, along with their offspring. A leader, or chief rabbit, manages the warren and makes important decisions about it.

Five warrens figure in the story. The first is the Sandleford warren controlled by Chief Rabbit Threarah. It’s an ok place overseen by a mildly corrupt Owsla, but a group of young bucks led by Hazel must fight its way out when Fiver senses the warren is endangered by a human construction project. Nearly all the warren’s remaining members are killed, and its burrows plowed under, by humans.

The second warren is the warren of the snares, run by the rabbit Cowslip. Its sleek, well-fed rabbits welcome Hazel’s group; the place is well built and supplied with food by a nearby farmer. The newcomers discover that the warren is a luxurious trap surrounded by snares.

The third warren is Watership Down, built by Hazel’s group atop a steep hill. High and dry with plenty of nearby grazing, the location boasts excellent sight lines for spotting predators, almost no human activity, and a sturdy stand of trees under which the group digs a spacious set of burrows. Most of all, the warren is well managed by Hazel and his group, who believe strongly in working together, mutual respect, and freedom instead of blind obedience. 

The fourth warren is the dreaded Efrafa, some miles to the south of Watership Down, tightly controlled by the tyrant General Woundwort. His system of rigid rules and harsh punishment is meant to keep the warren a secret from humans, and it’s so successful that it becomes overcrowded. Its members, though, are prevented from leaving, which worsens the problem. Hazel’s embassy to Efrafa, led by Holly, is treated harshly; Hazel’s next effort involves sneaking several does out of Efrafa. This generates a counterattack by Woundwort’s forces, which fails when they’re outsmarted by Hazel’s rabbits.

A fifth warren, founded by Groundsel, Strawberry, and Buckthorn, is located midway between Watership and Efrafa, which also contributes rabbits. It’s a peace gesture between the two older warrens and the beginning of better relations between them.