The Gentle Wonderment of Watership Down
On Watership Down, the coming summer, and my Substack
While rabbits have a thousand enemies, I have a thousand subscribers! So I wanted to, in this mishmash of an article, write a close reading on Watership Down, talk a little about the oncoming summer, and link them both to the birth of my publication. Though a little distracted by the end, I hope you enjoy. <3
I : Of Looming Death: The Folkloric Mortality of Watership Down.
Richard Adams wrote Watership Down for his children to entertain them on long car journeys, and has been quoted to vehemently say it is a story “just about rabbits”. I have long since been a believer in the idea that art can be interpreted by the reader, audience, observer, in ways entirely separate from the artist’s intention. We see things as a function of our environment, and cannot help but relate it to our own experiences. Thus, Watership Down is not just a story about rabbits, but a folkloric exploration of fleeting lives easily squandered; of strict hierarchy and revolt; of connection and, ironically, human comfort in company. It is an allegory, however much the author claims not to have seen it as so.
The folklore of Watership Down is embedded in this constant looming death. The book runs riot with Lapine mythology, created entirely by Adams. El-Ahrairah, The Prince with a Thousand Enemies, embodies all rabbits that “the fox and the weasel with cunning hearts and sharp teeth” (Adams, 25) hunt. Many preludes within the novel introduce these stories as the rabbits sit warm and together within their warren. Once Watership Down is established, we as the reader can begin to build in our minds the delicate comfort of The Honeycomb as it symbolises the utter comfort of home; where no fear of death exists.
Meyer explains in his The Efrafan Hunt For Immortality: “Anxiety about death preoccupies these rabbits with their pathetic creatureliness and links Adams’ rabbits inextricably with humans in their anxiety about death and loneliness” (Meyer, 71). Rabbits themselves, with their connotations of innocence and vulnerability, become this allegory for a side of human nature obsessed with death. We naturally fear the existential dread of permanence in death, such is the curse of our nature to comprehend abstractions beyond, seemingly, other conscious creatures. So, to put this conscious ability onto frail creatures, we are able to completely personify this specific fear.
“At our core, we are a paradox: unique symbol-making creatures who can soar in our urge to imagine the infinite, the transcendent; and creatures who inhabit a frail body vulnerable to disease and accident, one that inevitably will weaken, die, and rot. At our centre, we know our ambiguity.” - Charles A. Meyer
Meyer goes on to relate these ideas to Existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard “Humans, conversely, validate Søren Kierkegaard’s observation that "if man were not a beast or an angel, he would not be able to be in dread." by having fallen into self-consciousness and reaped its ironic reward of anxiety.” (Meyer, 72). The rabbits are violently human in nature. They create folklore and myth to tell to one another, they mourn - “My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today” (Adams, 149) - and they fear death as it looms over them throughout this tale.
II : On The Coming Summer
I am writing this on the eve of the seventeenth of April 2025. I’m tucked up in bed, feeling itchy after a mosquito buzzed in my ear, with cold feet and an Elden Ring streamer on the telly. Today, I saw my niece who is turning one this Sunday, and I submitted my Master’s dissertation proposal.
The rest of the year looms over me like a dreadful cloud.
I do not often write about myself on here so I am a little nervous to, but I promise my fears and trepidations shall not take up too much of this section.
I have been in education my whole life, so the concept that this will be my last assessed piece of work where I shall be given a grade is a…strange thought. I have no vision of my future outside of anything to do with literature, but I also have no vision of a career I can enter; and that is a frightening thought.
I am lucky my parents are so kind and loving, keeping me afloat for as long as I need. I desperately try to make my thankfulness of them known, but it is hard when they’ve done so much. Alas, I hope I will not need their assistance for longer than necessary. Jobs are harder to get into, life is more expensive - I fear I’m entering the world at a very difficult time.
But what keeps me going is a lack of stagnation. The changing seasons, especially, help to keep me moving. I love winter - endlessly - and I will be yearning for it within the first week of July, but right now I cannot wait for summer. Already can we see lush verdure blooming all around; but to smell that dewy sweetness in the morning is such a specific want.
I cannot wait for picnics with friends, reading in the garden, a cider in the sun. I’m going on an annual trip to Cornwall in June - I cannot put into words how ecstatic I am to smell the sea air and feel her chill breeze on my skin. To put my phone away for a week and fully immerse myself in the world around me. Last year, my dad and I stared at that endless horizon for half an hour and our troubles died on the curvature of the earth. We felt peace as we stood there, and realised how little it all mattered in the end.
We experienced The Sublime.
I yearn for it again.
It was this last summer that was the sweetest in a while. I had returned home from my Undergrad in York, having had a…less than optimal time there, and had nothing to do but read and prepare for my Master’s. I read more than I ever have August last, and have sweet memories being entirely absorbed in the midsummer pulchritude of Watership Down…
III : The Origins of Reveries In The Warren
As said, it was August and September last year that I read Watership Down. It was around that time that I also discovered the work of Icelandic/Filipino artist Yaelokre. My mind became full of visions of hazy fields and loamy eventides. Of sleepy late-summer scenes of rabbits and hares; the drone of lethargic bees and the slow descent into early Autumn. When I read Watership Down after listening to Yaelokre, it just clicked - it was so apt to their stories of the MeadowLark that I fell in love.
This was also nearing the time of my deletion of Instagram. I wasn’t always going to be on social media, but Substack is such a lovely place that - until it inevitably deteriorates into every other social media platform - I’ll remain here. I love the long-form essays that can be shared here, and the atmosphere is just so much more romantic than that of Instagram (which has definitely deteriorated into a vile thing).
Gentle Wonderment was originally, and still is, the name of one of my Pinterest boards that encompass the feeling of Yaelokre and Watership Down (along with some darker themes, as is my habit as a Gothic fan). Wonderment is a word I found through Yaelokre, and I just think it’s accompaniment of “gentle” fits perfectly the atmosphere I wished to create here. Maybe one day it will change, but for now I like it.
{5th of June edit: I have changed it, along with edited this post a tad to make it more consistent! Not sure why I didn’t before, it makes more sense methinks}
Though I’ve been posting a lot more video game content recently, I do wish to go back to posting more literature essays and such as I forgot how fun it is (when not attached to university).
I recently added a paid option for this publication in order to help promote and support a gothic novel I am in the works with. It’s entertaining to share my thought and writing processes, arbitrary notes about the story, in-world documents that immerses readers, and character dissections.
Alas! I’ve started to ramble.
Thank you endlessly for all who have supported me with subscribing! I truly hope you enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed writing it! More literature-esque pieces to come in the near future.
I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your day/night <3 <3
Adding the book to my tbr
Watership Down is my favorite book only after The Lord of the Rings. I love what you shared here and hope summer is a joy for you. I too long for winter about the 1st of July. 😊 And here the summers are long and hot.