Watership Down: Chapter 44 Summary & Analysis

Hazel returns to the Honeycomb, where all of the Watership Down rabbits are crouched in the darkness and all of the runs have been sealed. Woundwort and the others are just above ground, and Hazel and the others can hear them planning to excavate the blocked holes and drag them out. Vervain and Groundsel begin digging out the blacked holes, and Vervain, discovering an open run, sends two officers down. Silver and Buckthorn meet them and attack them—the Efrafans, mauled, barely escape with their lives. Groundsel begins digging down into the warren and finds himself face to face with Blackavar, who viciously attacks him, and Groundsel scampers away.

Woundwort realizes that an attack will be more difficult than he suspected. Campion suggests they lay siege to the warren and starve them out, but the impatient Woundwort rejects this plan. One of his officers suggests they dig straight down into the ground, forming a new run; they will eventually fall through the earth and land in a burrow, where they can infiltrate the warren and begin an assault. Woundwort approves the plan, and soon Hazel and the others hear the sound of scratching above them.

Blackberry worries that the roof will soon give in, even though Hazel is confident that all the digging will tire the Efrafans out and dull their claws, making a confrontation easier. Bigwig suggests they evacuate the Honeycomb, get everyone into the sleeping burrows, and block the runs. Hazel knows this is only a temporary solution, but Bigwig says that by the time the exhausted Efrafans dig through two enormous swaths of earth and encounter angry rabbits ready to fight on the other side, they might turn tail and go home. Hazel agrees to the plan, and the work begins.

Hazel encounters Fiver, who is not digging but listening for “something the others can’t hear.” Fiver begins going into a trance, muttering about “falling” and “cold.” Suddenly, Fiver lets out a terrible scream, and begins shouting at the others, calling them “dirty little beasts.” Bigwig urges Hazel to control Fiver before he frightens all the others. Fiver falls into a “deep stupor,” and Hazel cannot wake him.

Hazel himself begins to have a strange vision. He remembers coming to the first river with Fiver, and hearing Bigwig tell them all to hurry across as there was a dog loose in the wood. As Hazel comes out of his trance, he realizes what he must do. He tells Bigwig to get Dandelion and Blackberry and bring them to the last open run at the back of the warren. When the rabbits arrive, he tells them he has a plan, but no time to explain. He tells Dandelion and Blackberry that they’re going to follow him out of the warren and down the hill, and asks Bigwig to seal the run after they’ve gone. Bigwig begs Hazel to tell him something of the plan, and Hazel replies that he is returning to the farm “to gnaw another rope.”