Volume 5 Number 2 Article 3

10-15-1978

The Shaman as Hero and Spiritual Leader: Richard Adams’ Mythmaking in Watership Down and Shardik

Edgar L. Chapman

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Recommended Citation Chapman, Edgar L. (1978) "The Shaman as Hero and Spiritual Leader: Richard Adams’ Mythmaking in Watership Down and Shardik," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 5 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol5/iss2/3

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm

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Abstract Focuses mainly on Shardik, calling it “a demanding novel which explores the possible ways of responding to the emergence of the transcendental and mythic into ordinary existence.” With Watership Down, it justifies the importance of intuition, mystical, and transcendental experience.

Additional Keywords Adams, Richard. Shardik—Moral and religious aspects; Adams, Richard. Watership Down—Moral and religious aspects; Valerie Protopapas; Bonnie GoodKnight

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol5/iss2/3 THE SHAMAN AS HERO AND SPIRITUAL LEADER: RICHARD ADAMS' MYTHMAKING IN WATERSHIP DOWN AND SHARDIK by Edgar L. Chapman

(1) It was Fiver's vision which inspired the rabbits to leave their original warren, and which provides them with Richard Adams's S h a rd ik is a demanding novel which ex­ guidance along the way. And the tales of "El-Ahrairah," the plores the possible ways of responding to the emergence of rabbit hero and redeemer, and his constant companion Rab- the transcendental and mythic into ordinary existence. scuttle constitute an archetypal hero myth—a hero with a Adams's work in general seems to be an imaginative ju stifi­ thousand faces and wiles—which inspires the fugitive rab­ cation and defense of the importance of the intuitive, the bits.5 The stories of "El-Ahrairah" include a creation mystical, and the transcendental experiences in a time of story, various trial stories, including a trip to the under­ pragmatism and scientism . Both Watership Down and S h a rd ik world, and a redemption story, all of which help to create are novels which both create myths and offer justification courage and cunning in the rabbits who settle on Watership for myth's existence. Down.

( 2) Thus a culture led by an imaginative leader who listens to his shaman, and sustained by a vigorous myth is more A lth o u g h my m ain c o n c e rn i s S h a rd ik , I shall offer likely to survive, Adams implies, than a culture of intellec­ some brief comments on the presence of the mythic and numi­ tual decadence and hopeless resignation to fate (Cowslip's n o u s in W a te rsh ip Down as a kind of A e n e id ; o t h e r s h av e warren). And an intuitive culture is also superior to a called the book "magical" and exciting; a great many have culture trusting in organization and m ilitarism (Woundwort's been lavish in their praise. On the other hand, at least culture). The result of an over-reliance on militarism is a one reader has expressed disappointment with the book: its kind of social or international madness (the attempt to des­ imagery is "technical" rather than descriptive, he says; it troy one's own species if it fails to conform to one's organ­ is not really mythopoeic, being instead a beast fable; and in ization) ; and finally personal madness (self-destruction in a recent comment, this reader dismisses the theme of W ater- combat for the sake of combat). s h ip Down contemptuously as a conflict of Good Democrats vs. a Bad Dictator. Finally, the book is insufficient in its This theme has obvious im plications for the human presentation of the numinous; it provides none of the "joy" readers of Watership Down. At a time when many think that which C.S. Lewis looked for in the greatest literatu re.1 man stands at a crisis of his history the question of human survival itself is being raised. Adams clearly implies that While the initial reaction to W a te rsh ip Down may b e a there is no hope in decadent intellectualism that stresses bit fulsome, and Adams may be overpraised as a descriptive the negative and hopeless nature of man's plight, no matter w riter, I would suggest that we look at W a te rsh ip a s an im­ how clearly or elegantly—as much contemporary w riting and portant book in its own right; as a prelude to S h a r d ik ; and art does— ; nor is there real hope in those who counsel as a revealing indication of what direction the works of toughness and force as answers to the problem of individual Richard Adams' imagination are taking. or societal survival (although there is a place for physical To describe the theme of W a te rsh ip Down as a battle strength and courage).6 between Good Democrats and a Bad D ictator as one reader has done is to be sim plistic. Such a reductive formula could Adams's choice of a rabbit society as a metaphor for possisibly be offered about the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. human problems of survival works effectively to embody his Tolkien, and Charles W illiams, especially Lord of the Rings theme. Nothing seems so poignantly satirical as a rabbit and That Hideous Strength . (In fact, such comments have society devoted to secrecy and m ilitarism , since rabbits are been offered about Tolkien's trilogy and Lewis's works by hardly, despite their courage, well equipped for aggression. hostile critics, as we all probably know.)2 While Adams's (Nothing, that is, except human societies which adopt such book differs considerably from these authors, it achieves a strategies). Again, nothing seems so poignantly pathetic as comparable level of dramatic life, and certainly is not a rabbit society eating well, but waiting patiently for the dwarfed by comparison. Like Lewis and Tolkien's work, the slaughter, trying to repress the knowledge that their life meaning of W a te rsh ip Down is more subtle than first appear­ is shortened and subject to an inevitable fate; yet despite ances would indicate. this attempt at repression, their entire existence is poi­ soned by the truth. As I read it, W a te rsh ip Down is essentially about the survival of intuitive and imaginative man in his conflict On the other hand, since rabbits a r e a non-aggressive with modern technology and industrial civilization, those species who rise to heroism only on special occasions, they ruled by the right side of the brain as opposed to those serve adequately as an image of human heroism which most ruled by the left side of the brain.3 The rabbit exiles who enlightened people can identify with. Since enlightened form the warren on Watership Down succeed because they are moderns (for the most part) tend to distrust warriors and guided by the visions of a shaman, the rabbit Fiver, and be­ warrior cultures (justifiably I would say), we might be more cause they have a leader, Hazel, who not only listens to the uneasy about the heroism of a society of wolves (for exam­ shaman and believes in his insights, but also knows and re­ p le).7 Adams's choice of heroes here is comparable to J.R.R spects the traditional myths of Rabbit culture.4 Both the Tolkien's use of Hobbits at the center of Lord of the Rings: shaman and the vital and constantly renewed living myths are in Frodo and Sam, Tolkien created heroes that everyone can necessary to sustain a living culture, Adams seems to be identify with. Tolkien's warriors, however, have not been s a y in g . universally admired; they have led to the claim that Tolkien 7 romanticizes and glamorizes war. Adams, at any rate, escapes some spirit or mythic animal, and the exercise of his power that charge.8 is a sign of his calling or vocation. H istorically, shaman­ ism is associated with the nomadic tribes of North Asia and In addition to dramatizing the central Importance of Cental Asia, but in a wider sense the shaman type has been the shaman's visions and the life sustaining myths in a found in many cultures, most notably among North American successful culture, Adams himself ventures boldly into an I n d ia n s .10 image of numinous reality in the conclusion to W atereh ip Down. At his death, Hazel is visited by El-Ahrairah, who Finally, it may be added that the shaman partakes of conducts Hazel to the "other world" of transcendence. This the most Intense and perhaps the most primitive and sponta­ is a moment which can, I think, arouse something of that neous kind of mystical experience in his visionary trances. haunting joy that C.S. Lewis spoke of so often. In using Kelderek makes the in itial discovery of Shardik, seeing the an im als fo r h is myth Adams d oes show h im s e lf to be an au th or bear for the first time and believing him to be the incar­ of fantasy and mythopoeic work; if Kipling is a mythopoeic nation of the "power of God," whose reappearance had been writer, so is Adams. foretold by ancient Ortelgan legend. Not only does Kelderek discover Shardik first, but he becomes the special priest The question has been raised whether W atereh ip Down i s and shaman of Shardik. The story of Kelderek's experience Indeed a mythopoeic book at a ll. The spectre of Beatrix with Shardik is a series of revelations and initiations into Potter and her cautionary tale of Peter Rabbit has been the various possible relationships between man and his vision raised, presumably because both have Lapine characters. It of the potency of the divine.11 seems to me that this is merely a red herring or cottontail, if you w ill, representing an obtuse reader response. P e te r The bear is driven into the Ortelgan country as sanctu­ R a b b it is simply a satirical fable. It doesn't create any ary from a great fire, perhaps an omen of some mythic event kind of myth. But I would offer the opinion that W atereh ip or series of events. For Kelderek the bear's coming is an Down is certainly mythopoeic in its passages dealing with event that manifests the divine w ill especially since Shar­ the rabbit redeemer. I would go further. I would assert dik saves him from a leopard. But the other Ortelgans react that if Kipling, who in the Jungle Books built a mythology somewhat differently. The Baron, leader of the Ortelgans, of animals, can be considered mythopoeic, then Richard Adams wants no part either of bears or divine revelation. An ex­ in Waterehip Down has certainly written a mythopoeic book.9 ceptionally strong-willed man who lives his life on the plane of natural reason, the Baron defers the matter to the Generally, however, Adams does not venture into visions current priestess, the Tuglnda, in the hope that she w ill do of the world of transcendence, but rather shows how the world something about Kelderek and the Bear that w ill resolve the of transcendence breaks into and affects the world of time problem in a fashion not too embarrassing to him. To his and phenomenal experience. In S h a rd ik , Adams d e v e lo p s t h i s dismay, however, the Tuglnda regards the Bear as a true mes­ thematic idea much farther. S h a rd ik traces the sequence of senger from God, and conceives it to be the duty of her and events that follows a new revelation of divine power in the her priestesses to care for Shardik. Only Kelderek and the human w orld ; i t shows th e e f f e c t o f t h i s r e v e la t io n on many, priestesses who believe in the mystery of Shardik dare to and the way the immanent incarnation of the sacred world is risk personal injury in caring for the bear. They are able misunderstood and abused; the novel shows a kind of triumph to approach Shardik and touch him without serious injury. of the transcendental force over those who destroy it; and Melathys, the most beautiful of the younger priestesses re­ it shows how a series of mythic events are then memorialized sents the coming of Shardik. Like the Baron, she does not in myth; finally, the novel suggests the redeeming social want her comfortable world disturbed; moreover, when she and human value of myth. The tale bears a more complex bur­ realizes she w ill be forced to care for the bear, she fears den of meaning than W atereh ip Down. I shall try to suggest for her life. Lacking faith in the mystery she is supposed some of this meaning. to serve, she flees Ortelga, not knowing that outside her province, she w ill be doomed to an exile of hardship and (3) prostitution.

As a setting for S h a rd ik , Adams p r o j e c t s an im agin ary The Tuglnda also fears Shardik's return, but regards empire of Bekla, a primitive human world without horses and the service of the divine bear as her necessary responsi­ without writing, somewhat Isolated, and containing one major b i l i t y : nation and several smaller semi-independent provinces and towns. This world is a rather static one, until the presence "...yes, I am afraid too; but at least I can thank of the divine erupts into it at its fringe on the island of God that I have never forgotten the real, the true Ortelga, in the person of Shardik, a huge bear who appears work of the Tuginda~to be ready, in all sober suddenly. Fulfilling Ortelgan myths that such a bear is reality for the return of S h a r d i k . " 12 holy, Shardik appears to be an overpoweringly holy figure to the hunter who first sees him. Unlike the Baron, she recognizes the Imperative of trans­ cendental revelation; unlike Melathys, she constantly looks This is Kelderek, a simple man receptive to the divine for a fulfillm ent of her people's myths. presence. His naivete and sim plicity—as well as his neces­ sary innocence—are signified by his nickname, "plays-with- For the younger Ortelgans, the coming of Shardik sig­ the-children." Not only is Kelderek a hunter, however, he nals a new era of m ilitary success. They overthrow the Bar­ is a potential shaman, though as yet unrecognized as such by on and hall Shardik as a symbol of Ortelgan resurgence. his people, who receive practical leadership from their Against the wishes of the Tuglnda, they convince Kelderek to Chieftain, the Baron, and instruction in myths and healing take Shardik on a war of liberation against the empire of from a female Shamanlc priestess, the Tuglnda. Bekla. Through a series of fortuitous incidents, which appear to demonstrate the divine power of Shardik, the Or­ What i s a shaman? In Waterehip Down, he was one who telgan army is victorious; the most important event in which saw visions and foretold events by going into a mystic the bear figures is his killing of the Beklan general. The trance. (Fiver, it w ill be recalled, was virtually a non- first part of the novel ends with the victorious Ortelgans combatant in the climax between Woundwort's forces and Ha­ marching toward the capital of the Beklan empire, which they zel's warren, because he had gone into one of his deepest propose to conquer. trances, and was so motionless that the Invaders were sure that he was dead.) But I would like to define shamanism The second book of the novel opens five years later more clearly, or at least draw upon the insights of a great when the Ortelgan forces rule the Beklan empire under the scholar. In the strict sense, according to Mircea Eliade, nominal leadership of Kelderek (now called Crendrlk) who has a shaman is a primitive religious leader and mystic who has been elevated to the status of priest-king. Shardik has now mastered a 'technique of ecstasy." He may also be a healer, become a national totem, a symbol of the Ortelgan conquest, a "psychopomp," and he may also be a priest, mystic, and and a hated symbol of tyranny to the other peoples of the poet. A true shaman has mastered a certain method of heal­ empire.13 Kelderek, seemingly unaware that he is merely a ing or vision or magic; he isn't necessarily an ordinary figurehead, cares for the bear, and still maintains his mys­ medicine man or priest; he may exhibit a unique mastery of tic rapport with the animal. Vaguely dissatisfied despite 8 Che widespread acknowledgment of Shardik as the power of God, Kelderek longs for some further revelation from Shardik that w ill explain human existence.

At the same time, we learn that the Ortelgan rule in the Beklan empire is unjust, and that, without much under­ standing of his act, Kelderek has legalized an archaic slave trade throughout the empire to maintain its economic stabi­ lity. This section of the novel ends with the Beklan empire falling into civil war, when Elleroth, a rebellious prisoner, performs an act of blasphemy at a ceremony honoring Shardik: he hurls a live coal into the cage where the bear sleeps. Terrified, the bear breaks loose from his captors and goes on a trail of destruction through the city, before fleeing into the countryside.

It is obvious that the use of the bear as a symbol of conquest and Ortelgan supremacy is an abuse of the divine. By permitting the mythic bear to be used in this fashion, Kelderek has allowed the incarnation of the divine to be abused, and showed an improper understanding of it. But it is here that Adams begins a perceptive treatment of Kelderek's further initiations into a better understanding of man’s re­ lationship to the holy.

(4) and the Baron's strength have helped her to rediscover her human dignity; and she helps Kelderek see that a measure of Forced to pursue Shardik into the hills, Kelderek em- human self-respect can be maintained in the most depressing barkd on an exhausting journey of the spirit. The bear circumstances. Both Kelderek and the priestess have lost creates havoc among the animals of the villages, and suffers their innocence, as they realize, but the possibility of from their attacks because, Kelderek realizes, of Kelderek's love between them exists, and begins to grow. But a final follies. Although his pursuit of the bear seems hopeless, initiation awaits Kelderek. Having discovered guilt, hu­ he has no choice; he has become the "prisoner of Shardik," m iliation, despair, the loss of illusions and hope, he still in Adams's words.14 must confront the worst imaginable instance of human evil. In a deep humiliation of sp irit, Kelderek follows Shar­ He meets the worst evil in the novel—the inhumanity of dik to the frightening ravines called the "Streels of Urtah." man—in the slaver, Genshed, into whose hands he falls on a After Shardik emerges, he is looked upon by the people journey back to Ortelga. Genshed is an unlicensed slaver dwelling thereabouts as a being set apart, beyond the reach who deals almost entirely in children; believing in nothing, of any man's vengence, and destined to follow a strange fate he makes cruelty and destructiveness his only amusements. and Kelderek also assumes this status. Later he meets the Genshed usually castrates his boy slaves, mutilates the girls, Tuginda, the mother priestess of Ortelga once more, and from and delights in schooling his assistants in cruelty. Des­ her learns the "legend of the streels," which clarifies Kel­ troying innocence is his personal vocation. There is no ro­ derek's experiences. The mystery of the streels is their mantic glamor about this man, as there so often is in mythic role in the "bringing of retribution upon the wicked—those, depictions of evil (as in Sauron and Satan, for instance). that is, for whom such retribution has been ordained by God."15 Genshed is what the scriptures call a "mystery of iniquity" The streels, ravines which seem bottomless, are compared to for which there is no natural or reasonable explanation.18 the mouth of hell by many.16 Those who enter the streels Preserving Kelderek for one of his drab and pointless are nearly always killed by the villagers nearby—if they cruelties, Genshed at last meets Shardik who, worn and don't go mad wandering in the wilderness of the streels. wounded from his many encounters with pursuers, destroys Adams's imagination is especially powerful when he describes Genshed in a final climactic encounter. this landscape which represents one of the waste places of the spirit. Shardik too is killed in his fight with Genshed, yet releases Genshed' s slaves; hence Kelderek sees in Shardik's On rare occasions, however, a fugitive's life is spared death the revelation he had been searching for. The bear at in the streels, and such a person is thought to be destined last receives his apotheosis by becoming a redeemer figure: by God to some special act of redemption or self-sacrifice. Shardik, the savior of children. Kelderek believes that his experience with the streels is a punishment for his sin of misusing Shardik: his crime—as But there has also been a pattern to Kelderek's expe­ the Tuginda puts it—is "subjecting the power of God to the riences. Mircea Eliade tells us that shamans undergo a very power of men."17 Fearing that he now bears some fateful complicated series of initiations when they are being responsibility, he now takes on the Tuginda's burden, that cleansed of the profane and becoming confirmed in their vo­ of searching for Shardik. (It is a burden his own actions cation. Sometimes, these experiences come in a long bout have forced upon him, as he realizes.) of psychosomatic illness, during which they have dream visions of being tortured by evil spirits, of dying, of Kelderek's wanderings bring him into contact with El­ being dismembered, and then being resurrected. The "fun­ leroth, the rebel who fomented the revolution against Shardik damental pattern of all initiations," says Eliade is lived and Kelderek's rule, and now a leader of the army restoring out in the shaman's dreams: "first, torture at the hands of order to the Beklan world. Moved by his own mysterious pur­ demons or spirits, who play the role of masters of initia­ poses, Elleroth, (now called Ta-Kominion), spares Kelderek's tion; second ritual death, experienced by the patient as a life, but exiles him to the wasteland beyond the Vrako riven descent to Hell or an ascent to Heaven; third, resurrections S till pursuing Shardik, Kelderek passes from humiliation to to a new mode of being—the mode of 'consecrated man,' despair, and at last comes the city without law and without that is, a man who can personally communicate with gods, hope, Zeray. demons, and sp irits..."19 What shamans ordinarily expe­ rience in their sicknesses and dreams, Kelderek has ex­ Zeray is a city of outlaws and outcasts where chaos perienced on the plane of human experience. Spared by di­ rules most of the time, but it is also a city without illu­ vine action in the person of Shardik, he has been symbol- sions. Yet here Kelderek rediscovers hope and purpose, for icaly resurrected as a "consecrated man." he meets the priestess, Melathys, who had fled from Ortelga at the coming of Shardik. After hardships and prostitution, Adams's novel concludes with Shardik's life now trans­ Melathys had fallen under the protection of the Baron, Ortel­ formed into a myth of redemption. Kelderek and Melathys ga's one-time leader, who had by his strength and leadership perpetuate the myth by becoming the devotees of Shardik. established a modicum of order in Zeray. Her experiences Kelderek, now governor of Zeray, attempts to redeem its 9 waste and chaos by making it a refuge for children. Kelde- F o o tn o te s rek's life now is devoted to the preservation of innocence and reverence for Shardik; the myth of Shardik is honored by annual rituals at Zeray. 1This view of W atership Down was expressed in M y th p r in t (June, 1975) in a brief article by George Colvin, "Watership: Under the rule of Elleroth, the Beklan empire prospers, Up or Down??" pp. 11-12. Colvin's remarks occasioned a pair and attempts to establish trade with its distant neighbors. of replies in M y th p r in t (July, 1975) by Jim Carleton (9-10), In the final section of the novel, an emissary from a dis­ and by Lee Speth (10), both of which took Mr. Colvin to task tant land comes to v isit Zeray, and despite being a sophis­ for some mis-statements. Neither, however, exposed the ticated sceptic, he affirms the strength of the Cult of shallowness of Mr. Colvin's reading of W atership Down. The Shardik. Thus Kelderek's life with Shardik has a series of upshot was that Mr. Colvin offered a smug rejoinder which initiations into the false use or abuse of the divine and the further confused the issues. He pretended that Mr. Speth true value of the relationship with the divine. Though had attacked him personally, although the evidence for this Kelderek is a solitary spiritual seeker, it is easy enough claim is not present in the original statement by Mr. Speth, to see analogies between his life and the history of many aside from a couple of satirical verbs. Colvin's tone in major religions, like Judaism and Christianity. the reply assumes victory, partly because his critics al­ lowed him to define genre and theme of the novel (genre: (5) beast fable; theme; good democrats against bad dictator, or more crudely, Good vs. Evil). Then Colvin obfuscates mat­ S h a r d ik is a more grim and sombre novel than W a te r s h ip ters further with a rambling argument about the nature of the Down, and undoubtably w ill never be as popular with the Mythopoeic Society. general reader.20 In some ways, it is a more irritating 2 book, and it is certainly not as "pleasant" in its effect. A full review of negative critics of Lewis, Tolkien, B ut l i k e W atership Down, Shardik asserts the importance for and Williams would be lengthy and fruitless. On the list life of powerfully felt religious myth. would be Kathleen Nott, Roger Sale, William York Tindall, Philip Toynbee, and numerous others, perhaps a little less I f S h a r d i k is an allegory of spiritual education, it known. A representative negative view of Tolkien and Wil­ differs considerably from Pilgrim 's Progress. Pilgrim 's liams can be found in Brian A ldlss's The B illion Year Spree P r o g r e s s describes the obstacles to maintaining religious (Doubleday and Co., New York, 1973; reprinted Schocken Books, f a i t h ; S h a r d i k , however, indicates that we can abuse and 1974), a book which attempts a critical history of science misuse our image of God, even when we think we are honoring fiction (not very sucessfully, I would say). Aldiss reduces it. A parallel contrast might be drawn with C.S. Lewis's Lewis to sim plistic formulas on pages 196-201; and treats T i l l We H ave F a c e s . In that novel Orual's human jealousy Tolkien in a sim plistic fashion 265-269. causes her to resent and reject the intrusion of the divine and transcendent world into her life. In S h a r d i k , th e p r e ­ 3 The conflict between the intuitive man and the man of sence of the divine is accepted, but then perverted into the reason, or "technological man" as we know him in the twen­ means for establishing a human tyranny. In fact, Kelderek's tieth century, is as old as the English Romantic Movement naive response to Shardik's coming is responsible for nearly (1798-1832), and figures in much nineteenth century litera­ all the evils he must later confront. ture. The reference to the two sides of the brain alludes to the fact that modern research in psychology seems to All of Kelderek's adventures with Shardik are of course have established that the reasoning powers are located in open to other interpretations. In the world of Bekla every the left side of the brain, while the imaginative powers are spiritual and mythic event is ambiguous, as in our world; to located in the right side of the brain. This was pointed the sceptic, everything that happens of mythic significance out by Kathryn Lindskoog, a C.S. Lewis scholar, in a may be accidental. But to the eye of the intuitive and paper entitled "An Explication of Two Poems by C.S. Lewis" initiated, "superstition and accident manifest the w ill of at Mythcon VI, Claremont, C alifornia, August 15-18, 1975. God,"—to quote the epigraph that Richard Adams borrows from C.G. Ju n g . 4 The subject of shamans and shamanism is a good deal more vast than I am able to discuss here. Some of the There is also something fatefully ambiguous about the writing on S h a r d ik that follows may help however. The way man responds to and uses the incarnation of the divine Shaman, not much studied by anthropologists and historians in this world. He may pervert the divine revelation into an of religion until well into the twentieth century, is a re­ excuse for a crusade or holy war, and thus advance the cause ligious visionary in a primitive culture, usually an oral of destruction rather than the cause of life. culture living close to nature. The Shaman usually has considerable powers, sometimes including healing or athletic Yet Richard Adams, in creating the myth of Shardik, feats, and he is usually defined by his ability to prophesy makes it clear that there is a divine revelation, an in­ by means of an ecstatic trance. This is essentially the trusion of transcendence into the world of time. In both talent of Fiver in W atership Down. Ted Hughes, a contempo­ W atership Down and S h a r d i k , Adams describes the power of rary poet, discusses shamanism in F l i g h t s , ed. by David spontaneous religious experience in the visions of the Adams L eem ing, (New Y ork: H a rc o u rt B race Jo v a n o v ic h , 1 9 7 4 ), shaman. He also attempts to demonstrate the importance and 13-16. A more authoritative and exhaustive study is Mircea lasting significance of religious myth in human life. After E lia d e , Shamanism: Archaic Techniques o f Ecstasy (Princeton all, Kelderek's work in honoring the memory of Shardik and N .J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), a book sometimes re-claiming the city of Chaos, Zeray, may last longer than helpful to me in writing this paper. what the best efforts of the Baron—the strong natural man— could produce. Thus religious myth not only gives meaning 5The "hero with a thousand faces" is the archetype of to Kelderek's life, but assures a continuity of social the hero-redeemer in a culture's myths, as described by p u rp o se . Joseph Campbell: The Hero w ith a Thousand Faces (New Y ork: Bollingen Foundation, 1949; reprinted, Meridian Books, 1 9 6 0 ) . Nevertheless, we must recall that Kelderek's better A colleague of mine speculated that Richard Adams had read understanding of Shardik came after humiliation of sp irit, the book before w riting W atership Down. despair, and his meeting with Genshed. Hence, Adams's 6 work implies that the best revelation of the divine comes to Samuel Beckett and a host of other contemporary writers us out of those religious myths shaped by our experience of including perhaps Donald Barthelme, William Burroughs, and spiritual suffering. As the historian of religions, Mircea Kurt Vonnegut, express in their writing a radical negativism Eliade might suggest, our perception of the real nature of and a bleak nihilism about the human condition. While their the sacred and the holy comes after we have been confronted work is often brilliant in style, and often accurate in de­ with the experience of the worst offered by the profane picting the horrors of our secular and morally chaotic soci­ world, and understood the divine pattern that makes meaning ety, and even accurate at times in describing tragically of all existence.21

10 absurd events that seem to show some sort of cosmic injus­ Kelderek, of course, wants to make Shardik a universal fig­ tice, their work seems to offer only a counsel of resigned ure; but this cannot be accomplished by force. d e s p a i r . 14 The idea that man can be enslaved, at least for a 7I refer here to the widespread revulsion against vio­ time, rather than liberated by his concept of God is a theme lence in any form, other than a criticism of violence, in as old as the Hebrew prophets. A modern discussion of the the arts, or for that matter, in social and international re­ idea may be found in Nicholas Berdyaev, Slavery and Freedom lations. Even violence on behalf of the innocent, and (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944; reprinted 1967), against those who have shown that they feel contempt for translated by R.M. French; pages 82-93) humans, provokes an outcry from some liberal humanitarians, who also deplore hunting in all forms, despite a propensity 15Adams, S h a r d i k 3 p . 377. to eat beef, pork, and poultry regularly. A larger part of the public seems to deplore violence in principle, but to 16Adams, S h a r d i k 3 p. 376. The Tuginda suggests the be fascinated with it in motion pictures and television shows, identification with the "mouths of hell," and she usually especially when it is m eretriciously glamorized. While I speaks with authority in this book. Kelderek's passage of deplore violence, I believe that it is an illusion to be­ the streels—actually, it is Shardik's for Kelderek only lieve that we can live in a world without it (without a visits their edges—represents a journey to the underworld. drastic transformation of man and the conditions under which he lives); and as it is a part of reality, it can be a part 17Adams, S h a r d i k 3 p. 374. The Tuginda does not of art. I myself could easily identify with a species more accuse Kelderek directly, but she implies his guilt. capable of killing than rabbits, but I doubt that Adams's 18 book would have received such widespread acclaim, and per­ The "mystery of iniquity" theme contains the assump­ haps would have been less interesting if he had used a more tion that some forms of evil defy rational or pyschological aggressive species. explanation. Doestoyevsky frequently wrestles with this problem in his novels, particularly in exploring such char­ 8 The claim that Tolkien glamorizes war is an easy and acters as Stavrogin in The Possessed and old Karamazov in obvious one, especially since he treats war in the tradition­ The Brothers Karamazov. Shakespeare's Iago, for whose al epic fashion. Curiously, however, it occurs more often actions most ordinary explanations are unsatisfactory, may in oral statements than in print. This may be so because be another illustration in literature. some of those who are negatively disposed toward Tolkien, 19 like Lin Carter in Imaginary Worlds (New Y ork: B a lla n tin e Mircea Eliade, R ites and Symbols o f Initiation (New Books, 1973) are in no position to make the charge, since York: Harper and Row, 1958, Harper Torchbook edition), trars- it can be so easily turned against their own books, not to lated by Willard Trask, p. 91. See also Eliade, S h a m a n ism 3 mention some of the authors they champion, like Edgar Rice 33-35, for a general discussion of initiation patterns; and Burroughs, or Robert E. Howard. However, such warriors as see the pages following that for examples. Aragorn and Eomer do open Tolkien to this line of attack, 20 despite the fact that it is San and Frodo's cunning, endur­ One of my students, who has not read the book, has ance, and resourcefulness which destroy Sauron in the ring already reported that his impression was that the critics war. Adams, however, is less open to the charge; his had found that Adams had "fallen on his face" in this work. rabbits mainly win by courage, guile, and resourcefulness. It is easy to believe that the book w ill be less commercial­ ly successful than W atership Down. 9 In some of the stories in the Jungle Books3 a human 21 Mircea Eliade tells us in The Sacred and the Profane being, Mowgli, is at the center, although he really has no that the central theme of religious initiation is "Genera­ conception of what human life is. Others however have tion, death, and regeneration" (or rebirth), and that ex­ animal protagonists, and they are certainly mythopoeic. periences of psychic chaos and death in the "profane" or Some beast stories are certainly mythopoeic, although non-sacred world are often prepatory to experiences of re­ Tolkien in his essay of fairy tales considered them not to b i r t h . The Sacred and the Profane (New Y ork: H a rc o u rt be fairy tales, and hence by implication not mythopoeic. Brace, 1959; reprinted, Harper Torch books, 1961), trans­ C h a u c e r’s Nun’s P riest's Tale about Chanticleer and Reynard lated by Willard Trask; pages, 195-197, and in fact, the certainly seems to me to be mythopoeic. The fact than many entire last chapter have some relevance. beast fables are merely satiric does not exclude the pos­ sibility that some may grip the imagination as myths. Only a pedant would argue otherwise.

10Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques o f E c t a s y 3 Translated by Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964; originally published in Paris, 1951), pages 3-8.

110n initiation experiences for shamans, much of E l i a d e 's S h a m a n ism is valuable. See especially pages 33-66; and 110-139. Shamans frequently encounter an animal which contains the divine power or is semi-divine itself. Eliade says (page 67 of Shamanism) that "one of the commonest forms of the future shaman's election is his encountering a divine or semi-divine being, who appears to him through a dream, a sickness, or some other circumstance, tells him he has been 'chosen,' and incites him thenceforth to follow a new rule of life." Of course, divine animals are not limited to stories dealing with primitive peoples; they are a major element in much mythopoeic fiction. Examples include C.S. Lewis's Aslan, in the Narnia series and the sanctified bear, Mr. B u l t i t u d e , in That Hideous Strength; the albatross in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"; Moby-Dick, the whale, in M elville's novel; and the bear in Faulkner's novellette, T h e B e a r . 12 Richard Adams, S h a r d i k (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), p. 73. 13 A totem is a religious symbol which is exclusive ra­ ther than universal or international in character; it may denote the identity of a clan, a family, a tribe, or a naticn. 11