Epilogue
- The final two epigraphs are (1) from Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, about getting old; and (2) from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass about being part of someone's dream.
- The narrator zooms out here to give us some classic epilogue comments about what happens after the main story:
- (a) Hazel lives longer than many rabbits;
- (b) The warrens prosper, including Watership Down under Hazel; a more free Efrafa under Campion; and the new warren between the two that is "half Watership and half Efrafan" (2), just like Hazel proposed to Woundwort in chapter 43;
- (c) General Woundwort becomes a mythical figure, a cousin to the Black Rabbit;
- And then some rabbit spirit comes to Hazel and invites Hazel to join him in the sky.
- (Who comes to Hazel? A bunch of critics think it's Lord Frith. But we don't—we think it's El-ahrairah. Here's a clue: the rabbit is described as having silver light in his ears, and in the story of the Black Rabbit of Inlé, El-ahrairah gets new ears with silver starlight in them.)
- Whoever it is, Hazel goes with him. So Hazel dies—but the warren lives on after him. (Until people come to build an apartment building probably.)