Word: hlessil
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Once upon a time there was talk of zorn in the old rabbit warren. A bunch of the young bucks got together and agreed (for Frith's sake!) that even if they became hlessil, they had to pull out-and right away...
Zorn, in rabbit language, "denotes a catastrophe." Frith is the sun "personified as a god." Hlessil means migrant rabbits. And obviously Watership Down-the name of the upland where these hlessil finally make their new home-is also the code word for that territory known to Oxford dons and nannies: English-whimsy country...
...playing fields of England, bedeviled by crows, dogs, cats, automobiles and all the sundry elil (enemies) known to rabbits, not excluding other rabbits. The rabbit-you-love-to-hiss is a sort of lapine Erich von Stroheim named General Woundwort who runs a fascist-state warren. When the mateless hlessil bucks lure comely does from behind Woundwort's Iron Curtain, all bunny-hell breaks loose...
...much one can accept Adams' conceit that rabbits "are like human beings in many ways." Adams' rabbits, like people, are divided into leaders, prophets, poets and even comedians. ("Do you know what the first blade of grass said to the second blade of grass?" asks the hlessil Henny Youngman. "He said 'Look, there's a rabbit! We're in danger!' ") The most favored Adams rabbits seem to speak in U accents ("I say, what's happened?") and express a no-nonsense appetite for duty. The least favored Adams rabbits seem to incarnate...
Class Snobbery. In a sentimental attempt at brotherhood-of-beasts, Adams goes so far as to have his hlessil form an alliance with a black-headed gull and a field mouse. Alas, in an unfortunate lapse into rabbit class snobbery, the mouse drops its aitches like a cockney while the gull speaks with a bad Russian accent...
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