User:From Beyond The Stars/Lapine

So, this is my page for putting down some observations on the legends of El-ahrairah and the Lapine religion. I thought some people may find this interesting, and it may detail exactly what I believe in. I'm not going to sling around FRITH IS AWESOME CONVERT! because I don't do religious propaganda, and ZP is no place for it. This is merely for those interested. I don't have anyone else to share these observations with. SO I'M MAKING YOU, DAMNIT.

You'll need some basic information before we begin. The Lapine religion centers around three main beings:
 * Frith. Frith appears as the sun, but he's generally the Creator. He created all the stars, and the world among the stars, and so on and so forth. Basically, he's God, bro. But he's so cool, he's called Frith.
 * El-ahrairah (lapine: Elil-hrair-rah) is the Prince of Rabbits. His name is a contraction of three lapine words: Elil, meaning enemy, Hrair, meaning many or thousand (Rabbits only count to five. Anything past that is Hrair.) and Rah, which is a suffix used for the chief rabbit. It's also used in the word Flayrah. To Silflay is to eat grass, and Flayrah is good food like cabbages and carrots, the like. So Rah can be taken to mean the very best, the king, the prince. Thus, El-ahrairah's name means Prince with a Thousand Enemies. It's heavily implied El-ahrairah is immortal, or does not age like normal rabbits.
 * The Black Rabbit of Inlé (Lapine: Inlé-rah) Inlé-rah is the Black Rabbit of Death. He is the phantom-like servant of Frith, who deals with all death in the world. If an Elil takes the life of a rabbit or other creature without the permission of Inlé-rah, he will suffer a painful death at the hands of the Black Rabbit. Inlé means Moon, which goes some way to show that Inlé-rah isn't all evil. The Moon Prince. While he takes rabbits to their death, he brings justice against the elil who think they can do what they will. To quote Blackberry, "The Black Rabbit serves Lord Frith, but he does no more than his appointed task"

World peace. Its the one thing many religions have preached to death over the centuries. But the Lapine religion knows it cannot ever work, and this is proven in the Creation Story. When Frith originally made the world, and made all the plants and animals, he originally made all the animals the same. They all looked very similar, and all ate grass. They were all friends, too. El-ahrairah was among these animals, and soon his people, the rabbits, began to multiply at vast rates and covered the land, eating all the grass. The other animals looked to Frith for help as they were starving. Frith warned El-ahrairah that if he could not control his people, then Frith will. El-ahrairah does the verbal equivalent of flipping Frith off. Frith gets angry, and the following comes closest to the only real 'sin' ever in the Lapine religion. Frith sees that the animals cannot all live off the grass, for there is simply not enough of this natural resource. And he ties El-ahrairah's 'punishment', a term I use lightly for reasons you will see shortly, with his solution for this. So he gives each animal a gift - and to animals like the dog, cat, fox, weasel, badger, even us Man, he gives the fierce desire to hunt and slay the children of El-ahrairah. These are the Thousand Enemies. But he gifts El-ahrairah and his people too; giving him a shiny white tail to flash as a warning, strong back legs, a sleek body, and cunning. These attributes allow El-ahrairah and his people to survive in this hostile new world. So as you see, Frith didn't really punish El-ahrairah, because he gave him the means to survive.

Where does this tie in with our world peace? I like to believe every animal has its Thousand Enemies, or at least some enemies. And we, as man, are no exception. But we have only one Elil; ourself. Man will constantly fight with Man, and that will always happen. It will never change. It is our nature. Our gift from Frith to hunt and kill like the predators we are. World Peace can never, and will never happen, because it simply could never work.

Karma. The Lapine religion has an interesting take on Karma, and as anyone who's been paying attention will see, mainly in Inlé-rah's punishment of Elil who kill as they please. But also in another way. At the end of Watership Down, when Hazel is dying of old age, we see the Black Rabbit begin to leap over the mists toward him. However as it enters his den the figure changes into a brown rabbit with shining ears. One of the El-ahrairah stories, I believe it is the Inlé-rah one, tells us why El-ahrairah's ears glow. Right now, I do not recall offhand. I believe it is due to him losing his ears in a bet, but I don't remember at present. But anyhow, El-ahrairah's ears glow and this is how Hazel identifies him - ignore all those silly quote websites who tell you Inlé-rah takes Hazel, Hazel expressely greets El-ahrairah as his Lord - and El-ahrairah offers Hazel a chance to join his Owsla (this is the elite of a Rabbit Warren. They do patrols, fight intruders, etc etc). Because of all Hazel has done for the Sandleford-Watership rabbits, he is being offered a fate better than that of Inlé-rah. In a way, one might also consider it Rabbit heaven, but I do not believe Inlé-rah takes Rabbits to a place one might stereotype as hell.

I did have one more observation to share at present, but due to unforseen trauma occuring in the writing of this article I cannot recall it and do not wish to right now. I hope you found this remotely interesting, and I shall add more here as time goes by.

Also, here is a video of the first part of Watership Down the film, which shows the Creation Legend. 500px|right