Watership Down: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

That evening, Hazel is awoken by Fiver kicking and whimpering. He wakes Fiver up; Fiver reveals he was having a terrible nightmare in which the two of them were crossing a river atop a board made of “bones and wire,” but were separated when Hazel floated away. Hazel dismisses Fiver’s dream, but Fiver insists that his bad feeling hasn’t gone away. Fiver says they need to leave the warren “before it’s too late” and to convince the others to go with them. Hazel warns Fiver that no one will believe him, but when Fiver insists that “something very bad is close upon [them,]” Hazel wonders if they might be able to go talk to the chief rabbit about Fiver’s vision.

It is slightly after ni-Frith, or noon, when Hazel and Fiver depart their burrow and head to the Chief Rabbit’s. Down in the Chief’s burrow, a large member of the Owsla with a “curious, heavy growth of fur on the crown of his head” stops them from going any further. This rabbit’s name is Thlayli, or Bigwig. When Hazel tells Bigwig that they want to see the Chief, Bigwig is reluctant to let them pass, but knows Hazel to be a “sensible fellow,” and agrees to bring them down to meet the Chief, or the Threarah, a calm and often detached leader. Though the Threarah’s decisions as Chief have sometimes been seemingly coldhearted, he has kept their warren thriving in the face of many dangers.

Hazel and Fiver are led back to the Threarah’s burrow, and Hazel reminds the chief of who they are. He explains that last year, Fiver correctly predicted the arrival of a dangerous flood, and has now predicted a terrible danger coming to the warren once again. When Fiver cannot describe the specifics of what he sees coming, however, the Threarah loses his patience, and refuses to entertain Fiver’s request to evacuate the warren. Fiver begs the Threarah to reconsider and begins having a fit in which he collapses, feeling danger “like a wire round [his] neck.” The Threarah orders the two from his burrow, suggesting Hazel take Fiver home to rest. As they leave, they hear the Threarah reprimanding Bigwig for allowing them back to his chambers.