Watership Down the two girls. Adams's descriptions of wild rabbit behaviour were based on "The Private Life of the Rabbit" (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley. The two later became friends, embarking on an Antarctic tour that became the subject of a co-authored book, "Voyage Through the Antarctic" (A. Lane, 1982). "Watership Down" was rejected seven times before it was accepted by Rex Collings. The one-man London publisher Collings wrote to an associate, "I've just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I'm mad?" The associate did call it "a mad risk," in her
Watership Down realm of terrors to bring back some boon to save himself and his people" is a powerful element in Adams's tale. This theme derives from the author's exposure to the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell, especially his study of comparative mythology, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949), and in particular, Campbell's "monomyth" theory, also based on Carl Jung's view of the unconscious mind, that "all the stories in the world are really one story." The concept of the hero has invited comparisons between "Watership Down's" characters and those in Homer's "Odyssey" and Virgil's "Aeneid". Hazel's courage, Bigwig's strength, Blackberry's