How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
For a moment Hazel could hear nothing. Then he caught a distant but clear sound—a kind of wailing or crying, wavering and intermittent. Although it did not sound like any sort of hunting call, it was so unnatural that it filled him with fear. As he listened, it ceased.
"What in Frith's name makes a noise like that?" said Bigwig, his great fur cap hackling between his ears. (19.57-58)
Usually when the rabbits don't know something, we do: they see a big bird, we recognize a gull; they hear about an "iron road," we know it's a railroad. But here, we don't know what this is and the description doesn't help. Is it wailing or crying? It's not a hunting call, sure—but what is it? Suddenly, instead of watching the rabbits be afraid, we might be a little afraid with them. You got us, Richard Adams.
Quote #8
"The Efrafan Owsla are no joke, believe me. They're all picked for size and strength and there's nothing they don't know about moving in wet and darkness. They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else. (27.58)
Most of the time, fear doesn't seem to help rabbits: if they get too afraid of something, they'll just freeze up, which isn't a great defensive technique when someone's got you in their rifle sight. But here we have maybe the one example of fear being motivating for rabbits. Because in Efrafa, the Owsla are so afraid of Woundwort and his Council that they're not afraid of anything else. That might be irony, but it's also just bad news for anyone opposed to the Owsla.
Quote #9
Vervain in his time had encountered any number of prisoners who, before they died, had cursed or threatened him, not uncommonly with supernatural vengeance, much as Bigwig had cursed Woundwort in the storm. If such things had been liable to have any effect on him, he would not have been head of the Owslafa. Indeed, for almost any utterance that a rabbit in this dreadful situation could find to make, Vervain was unthinkingly ready with one or other of a stock of jeering rejoinders. Now, as he continued to meet the eyes of this unaccountable enemy—the only one he had faced in all the long night's search for bloodshed—horror came upon him and he was filled with a sudden fear of his words, gentle and inexorable as the falling of bitter snow in a land without refuge. The shadowy recesses of the strange burrow seemed full of whispering, malignant ghosts and he recognized the forgotten voices of rabbits done to death months since in the ditches of Efrafa. (47.74)
Here's Vervain, jerk extraordinaire, finally finding love. No, wait, we mean finally finding fear. Notice that almost half of this paragraph is all about how tough Vervain is, how he laughs at dying rabbits who curse him, etc. Which probably makes clearer the contrast with how scary Fiver is. That's nice change of pace for Fiver, by the way. For once he's not freaking out—he's the cause of someone else freaking out. Ah, how the tables have turned.