Watership Down is idyllic, with the exception that there are no females. He now believes the veracity of Fiver’s visions and pledges his support. Holly admits that he attempted to stop the emigration on the first night after Fiver’s vision, and apologizes. Both are severely wounded, having sustained injuries from a group of humans who destroyed their home warren, and further violence at Cowslip’s warren. They encounter Bluebell and Holly, two surviving members of the Owsla. They come upon Watership Down, which looks exactly like the place in his vision. The group rescues Bigwig from the snare and escapes with a new member, Strawberry, whose female partner was killed in a similar snare.įiver has a clear vision that they are approaching a safe place for residing. They were welcomed into the warren only to dilute its current population, increasing the residents’ average chance of survival. Bigwig is trapped in a snare and almost dies, whereupon the rabbits realize that Cowslip’s warren belongs to a farmer, who keeps them alive and well fed in order to kill them for meat and furs. In spite of the fact that the bunnies are at first thrilled to have discovered another home, Fiver senses an ominous fate in this warren. Cowslip tells them that they are welcome in his warren. Soon they meet a lone rabbit named Cowslip. Silver and Bigwig, the two biggest rabbits, are former members of the Owsla, so they act as the group’s guards, helped by Hazel’s cleverness and judgment. The rabbits trek through the dangerous country seeking a new home. Until this point, he has never led anything. Immediately, they are under threat by the warren’s guards, the Owsla, whom they must evade in order to escape.Īt the point when they get away from the warren, the group of eleven rabbits selects Hazel as the de facto leader. The brothers resolve to set off with a band of nine other rabbits from the warren who believes Fiver’s vision. Fiver and Hazel try, to no avail, to convince the chief rabbit that they have to escape.

A young rabbit named Fiver receives a prophetic vision of the demolition of their warren and relates it to his brother, Hazel. The very opening of the novel takes place in the rabbits’ home, the Sandleford warren.

Watership down full book