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 Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons 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 Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm 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.