12: Chapters 15-16. The Story of the King's Lettuce and Silverweed  

 

12.1: Burrowkeeping 

 

There is a petition against building on Sandleford Park, the site of the Sandleford Warren in WD. Petition link:  

 

https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-state-for-housing-communities-and-local-government-sandleford-watership-down-faces-developer-threat-to-ancient-woodlands-protected-animals?recruiter=890837112&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition 

 

12.2 Chapter 15. The Story of the King's Lettuce  

 

The story opens with El-ahrairah and his people having already gone too far and being forced to live in the Marshes of Kelfazin. We are introduced to Prince Rainbow. He checks that they remain in the marshes regularly. El-ahrairah asks if they can be released if he can steal the lettuces from the garden of King Darzin. Prince Rainbow agrees that, if El-ahrairah succeeds, his people will be allowed to multiply across the world and will never be able to be kept out of a vegetable garden ever again. 

 

Yona the Hedgehog overhears all that has been said and goes to tell King Darzin. El-ahrairah goes to inspect the garden with his Captain of Owsla, Rabscuttle. When Prince Rainbow later mocks him for not yet having the lettuces, he informs him that they are going to be delivered. They plot what to do. Rabscuttle hides himself in a garden where King Darzin's children are taken to play. When the children arrive the next day he joins them.  Rabscuttle is able to make friends with some of the many children and all the adults assume he belongs to someone else. When the children go back to the city, Rabscuttle goes with them. Then he goes to the store-room where the food is kept and spoils it. When the King and some of his people try eating some of it next day, it makes them ill. Rabscuttle keeps doing this to any food that is brought in for five days. Then he goes back to El-ahrairah.  

 

El-ahrairah disguises himself and goes to King Darzin, who is so ill he is desperate to he cured. He examines the King, then the store-room, then the lettuces in the secure garden and declares that it is the lettuces themselves that are the problem. He says that the lettuces need to be got rid of. Yona arrives with the Captain of the guard who says that the followers of El-ahrairah are planning to attack. So the King has a better idea: to take a thousand of the lettuces to the Marsh of Kelfazin to poison the rabbits. 

 

Prince Rainbow sees that El-ahrairah has succeeded and is as good as his word. The rabbits are set free and multiply all over the world, never being kept out of another vegetable garden.  

 

12.3: Chapter 16. Silverweed  

 

As Dandelion finishes his story the reaction of their hosts is not what they expect. Cowslip says that they don't really tell the old stories of El-ahrairah. Buckthorn comments that rabbits will always need tricks, but an unfamiliar rabbit disagrees. Cowslip introduces this rabbit as Silverweed, a poet. To Fiver Silverweed smells of dying things. 

 

The poem Silverweed recites has four stanzas.  

 

In the first one, he describes the wind and asks it where it is going. The second stanza describes a stream in the same way. The third autumn leaves. The last stanza speaks of Frith. The speaker is ready to give their life for him. 

 

Fiver has reacted to the poem with fascination and terror. Suddenly he forces his way out of the Great Burrow violently. Hazel and Bigwig follow Fiver, who turns to them and says he felt himself like a cloud drifting towards Silverweed, that the roof of the Great Burrow is actually covered by a mist. He finishes with saying that something can be true and yet still be "folly", or a serious mistake. Fiver is forced to return to the burrow they slept in the previous night. 

 

12.4 Next Episode  

 

In the next episode we finally learn the horrific secret of Cowslip's Warren. At what cost will this knowledge come?