Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

and demanding his beautiful doe.
    “I will not tolerate this insolence!” cried King Fur-Rocious. “We’ll make sure of that rabbit tonight. Take him and shut him up with the Savage Stoats!”
    They shut El-ahrairah up with the Savage Stoats, and in the middle of the night, he sang:
    “Ants, ants, come out of my ear.
    All the Savage Stoats are here.
    Sting their tails and sting their heads.
    Turn them into starks and deads!”
    Out came the swarm of ants from El-ahrairah’s ear. They crawled all over the Savage Stoats; they burrowed into their brains and stung them so fiercely that they all fell down and died.
    Next morning, as before, King Fur-Rocious sent for El-ahrairah’s body. But El-ahrairah came himself and said, “You sniveling ruin of a grimy King, give me back my doe!”
    “I can’t think how this wretched El-ahrairah manages all this,” thought the King. “I must find out at all costs.”
    “You’re to tie that rabbit up beside my sleeping place tonight,” he said to his followers. “Then I’ll see what he’s up to and put an end to his tricks for good and all.”
    So that night El-ahrairah was tied up beside King Fur-Rocious’s sleeping place. In the middle of the night, he sang:
    “Come out, stream, come out of my ear.
    Flow all round this stinker here.
    Pour yourself upon his head.
    Drown the blighter till he’s dead.”
    Out came the stream, pouring out of El-ahrairah’s ear. It flooded the whole place. It flooded the King up to his neck. The King became terrified.
    “Take her; take your doe!” he cried. “Go away, El-ahrairah! Only leave me in peace!”
    “No,
you
go!” commanded El-ahrairah. “Release my doe. Then take your disgusting followers and leave my Down forever!”
    That morning El-ahrairah was reunited with Nur-Rama, and on the Down was left neither hide nor hair ofKing Fur-Rocious and his followers. That was the only war that El-ahrairah ever fought, and that is how he won it.
    There was a scuffle from up one of the runs, and in a moment Buckthorn came down, his fur glistening with raindrops.
    “Hazel-rah, it’s cleared up beautifully!” he said. “The rain’s stopped, and it’s going to be a fine evening.”
    A few moments later there was no one left in the Honeycomb except for Bluebell, washing his back and recovering his breath after telling his story.

4

The Fox in the Water
    Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad.
    JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ,
Uncle Remus
    “Foxes,” said Dandelion, moving a little further into the evening sunshine and nibbling a sprig of burnet, “foxes are bad, I’ve always understood, if they take to living near you. We’ve never been troubled by a fox while we’ve been here thank Frith, and I hope it stays that way.”
    “But they’ve got such a strong smell,” said Bigwig, “and besides, you can very often catch a glimpse of them, however cunning they are, because of the color.”
    “I know. But if a fox happens to take up near a warren, that
is
bad, because it’s very difficult for the rabbits to be on the alert always, all the time.”
    They say (Dandelion went on), El-ahrairah and his warren were once troubled by a fox that made an earth near them. Actually, there was a pair of foxes and they raised a litter, and as both were continually hunting for food, thewarren had no peace. It wasn’t that they actually lost many rabbits—although they did lose some—but the continual tension and fear began to get the warren down. Everyone was looking to El-ahrairah for some answer to the problem, but he seemed as much at a loss as everyone else. He said little or nothing and everyone supposed that he must be turning the matter over in his mind. But the days went by, and nothing changed for the better. The anxiety was beginning to upset the does.
    And then, one morning, El-ahrairah was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared. Even Rabscuttle, his captain of Owsla, could not tell where he might have gone. When he didn’t return