The Black Rabbit Of Inle
This is a model of the Black Rabbit of Inle by Rachel Young.
The Black Rabbit of Inle is the Lapin god of the underworld. Here he takes a rabbit home. The Black Rabbit is the creation of Richard
Adams, Watership Down.
When the snare is set in the gap, the Black Rabbit knows where the peg
is driven; and when the weasel dances, the Black Rabbit is not far off.
You all know how some rabbits seem just to throw their lives away
between two jokes and a theft: but the truth is that their foolishness
comes from the Black Rabbit, for it is by his will that they do not
smell the dog or see the gun…But the truth is — or so they taught me —
that he, too, serves Lord Frith and does no more than his appointed task
— to bring about what must be. We come into the world and we have to
go: but we do not go merely to serve the turn of one enemy or another.
If that were so, we would all be destroyed in a day. We go by the will
of the Black Rabbit of Inle and only by his will. And though that will
seem hard and bitter to us all, yet in his way he is our protector, for
he knows Frith’s promise to the rabbits and he will avenge any rabbit
who may chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself.
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
Ecclesiastes 1:7
A great story -- I need to reread it. Watership Down is the Redwall idea done correctly.
ReplyDeleteRedwall, the first two books, is great. Then the Dibbuns show up. Makes me identify with Cluny the Scourge, like!
DeleteI don't know if I agree with Andibi. Watership Down is darker than Redwall, as I recall. Haven't read it in years; have to dig it out of my library again. Watership is deep, adult fantasy with a lot to say. Redwall is lighter, more middle Grade-YA, more fluff. I Liked them both. Brian Jacques must have done something right; there are over 26 books in the Redwall series.
ReplyDeleteOh, I was just thinking more of the respective setting of these two fantasy animal stories. I couldn't get past the first Redwall book because the clash of little medieval mouse cities and real-time humans just seemed too improbable to me. I'm told that the later Redwall books are much easier to digest in that way and of course Brian Jacques is hugely popular, probably with good reason.
DeleteWatership Down is one of the darkest and most violent books I ever read. Sad and profound. I remember when it came out I tried to read it and dismissed it as a 'bunch of rabbits'. Now I am amazed at how good a story it is. The question now is, who do I identify with? Bigwig? No, too brave and noble for me. Hazel? a born leader, not me. I think I'll go with General Woundwort!
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