Redeeming Mr. Toad - Kabbalah and The Wind in the Willows
For an introduction the principles of Kabbalah please click here
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908, has sold an estimated 25 million copies and has been widely adapted for stage, screen and television.
The story concerns four animals (Toad, Rat, Mole and Badger) who have human characteristics although real human beings also have important roles to play in the story. The setting is quintessentially English and contemporaneous with the time in which it was written.
The principal plot (although there are also some stand-alone stories within the book) concerns the efforts made by Rat, Mole and Badger to correct the behaviour of Toad who squanders much of his inherited wealth on passing fancies such as boats, horse drawn carriages and motor cars in quick succession.
The illustrations added by ER Shepard in 1931 helped popularise The Wind in the Willows which had first been published in 1908.and edit me. It's easy.
As with any good story, its survival and popularity can be traced to the way in which it invokes all aspects of existence. This means that the characters and situations can be set out on the diagram of the Tree of Life which is a map of the universe (see Figure 1.)
The principal characters in The Wind in the Willows can be seen to represent different levels of consciousness and fit on the central pillar of the Tree while their homes occupy triads which straddle the central pillar and are adjacent to the Sefirot symbolised by each animal.
For anyone who is not familiar with the story or would like a recap, please click here.
The story begins with the Mole who, tired of spring cleaning, emerges from his burrow and sets off across the countryside where he eventually reaches the River Bank and meets the Water Rat (Ratty or Rat).
Moles are blind and rely entirely upon their sense of smell and touch to make their way around so we can place the Mole at Malkut, the most basic level of consciousness which corresponds to the physicality of touch.
When Mole reaches the river he is awestruck - “never in his life had he seen a full river before” which describes the reaching of a new level of consciousness.
Ratty represents a well-ordered ego which engages with the three triads centring on it; his home is welcoming and hospitable (feeling), he is an animal of action (always messing around in boats) and he also writes poetry (thinking and feeling).
Rat arranges a picnic which the two animals share and they briefly meet Mr. Toad and Mr. Badger as well as Otter who, although not a major character, has an important part to play in the symbolic representation of the story on the Tree.
Mole asks Ratty many questions about his new environment including “What lies over there?” “That’s just the Wild Wood. We don’t go there very much, we river-bankers.” replies the Rat, introducing the idea of different levels of consciousness and location as shown by the horizontal paths on the Tree.
The River Bank is the path between Netzach and Hod and below this is where Rat and his friends spend most of their time only occasionally venturing into the Wild Wood (the unconscious) which is the path between Hesed and Gevurah or the limit of personal consciousness.
Figure 1. The characters and places of the Wind in the Willows set on the Tree of Life.
In answer to a further question from the Mole, Ratty tells him that “Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World….I’ve never been there and I’m never going.” The Wide World is, to the animals, the transpersonal (perhaps trans-animal in this case….) level representing the path between Hokhmah and Binah. This is of no concern to Rat whose concerns are limited to the personal and tribal.
The Mole (demonstrating an untrained ego) grabs the oars of Rat’s boat as he wants to row but only succeeds in capsizing it and casting them both (and the remains of the picnic) into the river.
“When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the wet out of him” he suggests that Mole should come to stay with him so that he can teach him to row and swim and all the other aspects of his life on the River Bank. The Mole has had his initiation – or baptism – being immersed in the river and must now learn how to live at a new level.​Despite all his bad behaviour and many faults Toad is the essence of the story and the subsequent stage adaptations under the title
Toad of Toad Hall confirm him as the central character.
Although it may be tempting to suggest that Toad is all ego and should be placed at Yesod I prefer to view him as
having fallen from Tiferet - The Wind in the Willows is thestory of his redemption.
It is also worth noting that Pride – the deadly sin which corresponds to (the negative side of) Tiferet is the quality of Toad which is most clearly seen when he subsequently disguises himself as a washerwoman – “But look here! You surely wouldn’t have Mr. Toad, of Toad Hall, going about the countryside disguised a washerwoman!” Avarice, the sin associated with Yesod, is not a part of Toad’s makeup.
Although Toad is the Tiferet of the story he is just one of three characters to occupy this position which makes sense if we remember that the Tiferet of Yetzirah is the place of the three lower worlds – the Keter of Assiyah, the Tiferet of Yetzirah and the Malkut of Beriah (see Figure 2).
Toad occupies the lowest of these three positions; he is concerned almost exclusively with the pleasures of the physical world without delving into the philosophical niceties of the higher worlds.
The place of the three lower worlds contains attributes appropriate to each of those worlds – Beauty (Assiyah), Goodness (Yetzirah) and Truth (Beriah).
Keats’s well-known lines in Ode on a Grecian Urn point to this:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
It is clear that Keats, was a significant influence on Oscar Wilde whom Kenneth Grahame greatly admired and who was imprisoned for gross indecency in Reading Gaol just a few miles from where Grahame spent much of his childhood - “[Keats] was always one of Wilde's favorite poets, indeed he considered him the greatest English poet of the century.”​
Grahame himself seems also to have admired Keats as there are a number of references to his poems in The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows.
Figure 2. Jacob’s Ladder showing the Four Worlds and the place where the three lower worlds meet – these are the three levels of the Self.
Once Mole is established in his new home he asks to go and see Mr. Toad and so he and Ratty row up the river to pay a visit.
Toad Hall itself corresponds to the awakening triad – it “is really one of the nicest houses in these parts” Rat explains to Mole.
Toad himself describes it as “a fine house called Toad Hall” to the bargewoman on whose boat he later travels. Similarly, he tells the engine driver on whose train he escapes from gaol that he is a “landed proprietor” while he gives the full details to the gaoler’s daughter “Toad Hall… is an eligible self-contained gentleman’s residence, very unique; dating in part from the fourteenth century, but replete with every modern convenience. Up-to-date sanitation.”
On their arrival at Toad Hall, Rat and Mole find that Toad has given up on boating which was his last craze and is now besotted with gipsy caravans. Toad persuades his visitors to embark on a trip in the caravan that afternoon. The following day the horse towing the caravan is spooked by a passing motor car and crashes the caravan into a ditch.
Toad’s enthusiasm for caravans vanishes instantly and is replaced in his affection by motor cars. After a long journey home Toad wakes up the following day and immediately orders “a very large and expensive motor-car.”
One winter’s afternoon The Mole, now curious to see Mr. Badger, sets off on his own to the Wild Wood despite having been warned by Ratty that this is not safe to visit alone. As darkness falls Mole becomes frightened by the sights and sounds of the Wild Wood – the faces of stoats and weasels peer at him from holes in trees, he hears whistling and the pattering of unseen feet until he realises he is experiencing the “Terror of the Wild Wood.”
This terror corresponds to all the fears which are described by the emotional triad on the left of the Tree – Tiferet-Gevurah-Hod – and will be balanced when Mole is led to safety back out of the Wild Wood by Otter and Rat at the end of the next chapter.
Rat eventually finds Mole and they stumble over Mr. Badger’s house where they are warmly received into a safe haven.
Badger represents the second level of Tiferet in this story, the Tiferet of Yetzirah. He has organised his daily life, combines generous hospitality with discipline and has some contact with the upper face of Yetzirah – especially Binah - as he understands the history of the area. He is also his own man (or animal) pursuing his own path even if this conflicts with recognised social niceties.
This is in contrast to Toad (a lower level of Tiferet – the Keter of Assiyah) who pays scant attention to the legacy which history has bestowed on him although he is happy to enjoy its physical benefits. Badger has the maturity and comprehension of his actions which Toad does not.
While Rat (Yesod) also has his life well organised we hear little of his relationship with history or tradition and he shows an automatic subservience to Badger. This shows the positive aspect of Yesod – the servant of Tiferet.
Badger’s home represents the soul triad – it is a place of safety and hospitality and also the scene of a most important discussion concerning what should be done to rectify Toad’s behaviour – the core of the story.
This discussion is held between all the principal characters in the book except Toad – Badger, Rat, Mole and Otter – the last having arrived once he has heard that Rat has gone to rescue Mole.
Although we have yet to meet the (human) characters who best represent Hesed and Gevurah the qualities of kindness and discipline are evident throughout this chapter – importantly it is the only one which takes place in Badger’s House – the soul triad.
Kenneth Grahame 1859-1932), author of The Wind in the Willows. Although born in Edinburgh he moved to Berkshire as a child where close to the River Thames which was part of the inspiration for the book.
The next chapter – Dulce Domum – is a stand-alone story in which Rat and Mole revisit Mole’s old home. This inevitably evokes sentimental recollections by Mole especially when a group of field mice visit to sing Christmas carols.
For the Kabbalist this shows the psychological gravity against which the spiritual seeker is working – there is always the temptation to return to one’s previous level and abandon the search.
​Rat and Mole stay overnight at Mole End and Mole reflects on his situation before going to sleep in his old bed – “he did not want at all to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him…the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage.”
Sun (Tiferet) and air (Beriah) are particularly important words in this passage when we recall that Mole’s home is underground while the “upper world” is an explicit mention of a world beyond physical existence which calls every
incarnated soul at some time or another even if only occasionally.
The following day Mole returns to the River Bank with Rat and resumes his new life.
A few months later, in early summer, the plan to reform Toad is put into action – initially by Badger talking to Toad and getting his agreement (in private) to modify his behaviour. However, once out of this meeting Toad declares to Badger, Mole and Rat that his repentance was a sham. The latter three then lock Toad in a room in Toad Hall but he escapes, steals a car which he crashes and is brought before the court.
Toad is given a prison sentence of twenty years (one year for stealing a car, three years for driving recklessly, fifteen years for cheeking a police office and one extra year to make a round twenty).
Chapter Six ends with the words “Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry England.” The halfway point in the book has been reached.
It is the only time that the words “Merry England” occur in the book and their significance is underlined by being at the physical centre of the story.
“Merry England” is the Da’at of the Tree of the book. The themes may be universal but the setting of the story is soaked in the English countryside which struggles to come to terms with modern inventions such as the motor car and – only six years later – the horrors of the First World War.
At the same time it evokes an idyllic past that seems to have existed between the Elizabethan age and the Industrial Revolution and which typically contained such elements as thatched cottages, Sunday roasts and country pubs.
Merry England is a phrase which was at the heart of Kenneth Grahame’s work and may well have been prominent in the public mind after the first performance of Merrie England in 1904.
This operetta by Edward German and Basil Hood specifically evoked the Elizabethan age with a cast which included Queen Elizabeth herself and such songs as O Peaceful England and The Yeomen of England.
Merrie England’s obvious predecessor was Gilbert and
Fowey Harbour in Cornwall was another source of inspiration for Grahame – he spent a number of holidays in Fowey and was married there in 1899.
Sulllivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard with its alternative title of The Merryman and His Maid first performed in 1888. The action takes place at the Tower of London and the cast contained a strolling jester and Yeomen Warders of the Tower of London – all very Merry England…
Some critics have suggested that Merry (or Merrie) England was nostalgic nonsense pandering to the shallow tastes of the middle classes. This view is, perhaps, most clearly demonstrated by Jim Dixon, the central character in Kinglsey Amis’s 1956 novel Lucky Jim. Dixon (drunkenly) delivers a lecture demolishing the idea of Merrie England in contradiction of his professor’s espousal of its values and is forced to resign from his post.
If we look at Merry England from a Kabbalistic perspective we can conclude that it is an idea which therefore belongs to the world of Beriah and whether it has manifested in the worlds of Yetzirah and Assiyah is something which can be debated (for which read “argued about”) from different cultural standpoints rather than using spiritual truths.
The concept of Merry England contains that which is perceived as universally beneficial (Yesod of Beriah) in a form appropriate to England (Da’at of Yetzirah) – the connection becoming apparent when we remember that these two Sefirot overlay each other on Jacob’s Ladder. (Figure 3.)
Toad, meanwhile, has encountered the upper left triad of the Tree – the judge who sentences him signifies Binah (legal system) while his gaoler keeping him under lock and key represents the discipline of Gevurah. Toad, as Tiferet completes the triad).
Toad has also encountered the third horizontal path of the Tree by entering the Wide World. True to his word in the first chapter Rat does not go to the Wide World and neither do Mole or Badger.
While Toad has encountered the Wide World the next chapter, evocatively entitled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, takes us one stage higher in the company of Rat and Mole who have a mystical experience in the form of a vision of Pan. While Pan cannot be held as Divinity in human terms we are dealing here with world populated by animals (even if they do have human characters) and in their eyes Pan does represent Divinity.
The vision occurs when Rat and Mole land their boat on a journey up the river to look for Portly, a son of Otter who has been missing for several days. In the vision Pan holds the baby otter and Mole and Rat find him physically after the vision has dissolved. The chapter is best read in full to appreciate the mysteriousness of the prose.
We saw earlier how Otter was associated with the positive emotional triad (Hesed-Netzach-Tiferet) in his escorting Mole to safety through the Wild Wood; his kindness is again mentioned when Mole asks Rat if he stayed to dinner when visiting Otter to discuss Portly’s disappearance. Rat replies “simply had to…..[t]hey wouldn’t hear of my going before. You know how kind they always are.”
The main narrative resumes in the following chapter in which Toad is helped to freedom by the gaoler’s daughter who symbolises Hesed (kindness) as a complement to the Gevurah demonstrated by her father, the gaoler. From the point of view of Kabbalah this is a necessary development in the plot for no universe can be eternally fixed on either of the side pillars of the Tree.
The gaoler’s daughter arranges for Toad to disguise himself as a washerwoman using clothes “borrowed” from the aunt of the gaoler’s daughter. Emerging from the gaol in disguise Toad heads to the nearest railway station and persuades a train driver to let him ride on the train despite having left his money in gaol when he put on his disguise. The driver represents Netzach which puts into action the emotion of freedom initiated by the gaoler’s daughter.
Toad is eventually exposed by the train driver as they are pursued by the police on another train and is deposited in the countryside where he finds a hollow tree in which to sleep until morning.
There now comes another stand-alone chapter which is a necessary balance to the constraints of the British Legal System ( the principle of Binah).
Rat encounters a Sea Rat who tells him of his many adventures on board ship which are completely outside the experience of the Water Rat - remember that the Water Rat has no intention of going to the Wide World and will only visit the Wild Wood in extreme circumstances.
​These ideas, which are entirely new to the Water Rat, show the principle of Hokhmah which means wisdom and also that which is new or unusual. Rat is completely besotted with the enticements of the Sea Rat – almost
Figure 3: The middle Sefirah on the central pillar of Jacob’s Ladder is the Da’at of Yetzirah but is also the Yesod of Beriah – the higher world which overlays Yetzirah. A similar correspondence exists between the Yesod of Yetzirah and the Da’at of Assiyah.
an echo of Toad’s obsessions – and goes home to pack a bag to follow him on his next adventure. Only through the dogged determination of Mole is he brought back to earth from the escapism to which he almost succumbed.
Back in the main narrative, Toad wakes up and wanders around without a clear sense of direction. This symbolises the Hodian principle of reverberation with no real progress being made. The ensuing incidents also demonstrate the qualities of Hod - both positive and negative.
Toad firstly meets a washerwoman on a barge with whom he negotiates a ride but is again exposed as a fraud when he is unable to wash some clothes for her despite appearing be a washerwoman himself. Toad is thrown into the river by the washerwoman but steals the horse which is leading the barge and heads across the countryside where he meets a gypsy who is a horse dealer. Toad negotiates a meal from the gypsy in return for the horse and continues his journey on foot.
Theft, disguise, trickery and negotiations are all characteristics of Hod.
Toad cajoles a ride from the driver of a motor car (which turns out to be the one he stole resulting in his prison sentence), crashes it and finishes up in the river where he is washed along to the entrance of Rat’s house. Toad’s lack of direction eventually takes him back to his natural level on the River Bank where Rat’s home and his own home are both located.
Toad assumes he will return to his own home but finds that, in his absence, Toad Hall has been sequestered by the Stoats and Weasels – the unconscious forces in the negative emotional side triad have occupied the awakening triad on the Tree of Life.
Badger, Rat and Mole have put together a plan to storm Toad Hall and regain power when the Chief Weasel is holding a birthday party in his own honour. Toad becomes the fourth member of the in the campaign to recapture Toad Hall – effectively a part of himself.
The key to this plan is that the friends will enter Toad Hall by a secret passage which emerges in the Butler’s Pantry. Seen Kabbalistically this passage represents the Da’at of Assiyah (the physical body) which is overlaid by the Yesod of Yetzirah and so access will be regained to the lower part of the psyche as bad habits and negative experiences (stoats and weasels) are expelled from it (Figure 3).
The expedition is successful and the final part of the story in which Toad is redeemed comes about through his reluctantly agreeing that he will make no boastful speeches or songs at the party held to celebrate his return. For the first time in the book we see Toad behaving with dignity as he is finally restored to Tiferet – “[h]e was indeed an altered Toad!”
The re-establishment of order is completed when reimbursement is made to those who assisted Toad or who were wronged by him during his adventures although we might wonder why Toad himself could not be traced by the authorities and made to serve the remainder of his prison sentence.
Perhaps, just as Rat knows better than to enter the “Wide World” where he does not belong, so the forces of (human) law and order recognise that they can not enter the fantastic world of the River Bank and Toad Hall to apprehend Mr. Toad.
Like a counter on its home column in a game of Ludo, (patented in the UK at the time The Wind in the Willows was being written) Toad is now in a safe space and cannot be taken by hostile forces.
The Wind in the Willows was one of the books I read many times in childhood more than 60 ears ago – a small blue edition with no pictures passed on from my mother and which I then read to my own children. Uncovering the deeper levels in this chronicle of four humanoid animals and how they are used to reveal universal principles has added immeasurably to my enjoyment and understanding of what at first sight appears to be a simple children’s story.
It seems unlikely that Kenneth Grahame set out with the express intention of creating a story which was a working model of the universe. However, his ability to tap into the perennial wisdom appears irrefutable given the close correspondences between so many aspects of the tale and the representation of the universe we know as the Tree of Life.
© Jonathon Clark 2025
The Wind in the Willows - Synopsis
Chapter 1 – The River Bank.
The Mole, tired of spring cleaning, emerges from his burrow and sets off across the countryside. Upon reaching the river he meets the Water Rat who takes him in his boat and shares a picnic with him. Mole tries, unsuccessfully, to row the boat himself after grabbing the oars but, instead, capsizes it and both animals finish up in the water. They meet Mr. Toad, Badger and Otter briefly and Rat suggests that the latter come to stay with him so that he can teach him the ways of life on the river including how to row a boat and how to swim.
Chapter 2 – The Open Road
At Mole’s request, Ratty and Mole go to visit Mr. Toad only to find that he has given up on boating which was his last craze and is now besotted with gipsy caravans. Toad persuades his visitors to embark on a trip in the caravan that afternoon. The following day the horse towing the caravan is spooked by a passing motor car (cars were a relatively recent invention when the book was written in 1908) and the caravan overturns. Toad’s enthusiasm for caravans vanishes instantly which are replaced in his affection by motor cars. After a long journey home Toad wakes up the following day an immediately orders “a very large and expensive motor-car.”
Chapter 3 – The Wild Wood
Despite warnings to the contrary Mole’s curiosity about Mr. Badger gets the better of him and, while Ratty is asleep, he sets off on his own to find him in the Wild Wood. As darkness falls Mole becomes frightened by the sights and sounds of the Wild Wood and is pursued by Ratty when he realises Mole has gone missing. Rat discovers Mole but the latter is so tired that he needs time to rest and, after waking up from a sleep, they discover it has started to snow. Lost, they wander in the Wild Wood until they accidentally discover the home of Mr. Badger when Mole trips over the door scraper at the entrance to his house and ring the bell.
Chapter 4 – Mr. Badger
Mr. Badger answers the door and invites Mole and Rat into his house where he feeds them and gives them a bed for the night. Mr. Badger enquires about Mr Toad and is told by Rat and Mole of a number of car crashes that Toad has had, three of which have resulted in his being hospitalised. There are various comings and goings of small creatures lost in the snow and Otter also arrives. There is much talk on the River Bank about Rat and Mole going missing and Otter has assumed that, like any other animal in trouble, they will be sheltering with Mr. Badger.
Badger takes Mole on a tour of his house with its many tunnels and rooms and explains how his house was built before the Wild Wood flourished and before a city was built which has long disappeared.
Otter escorts Mole and Rat safely back to the River Bank.
Chapter 5 – Dulce Domum
Mole, returning with Rat from a long country walk in December, smell his old house, Mole End, which he left in the spring at the beginning of the first chapter.
They decide it would be better to stay there for the night rather than try to get to Rat’s house as it is dark and there is the prospect of snow.
They scrabble around the cupboards to find food and drink and are visited by fieldmice who sing carols. Some of the field mice are sent to the local shops for more supplies and a pleasant evening is enjoyed by them all. Rat and Mole go to sleep with Mole reflecting that even though doesn’t want to leave his new life it is good to be reminded of the home he built for himself.
Chapter 6 – Mr. Toad
It is the following summer and Mr. Badger arrives at Rat’s house to announce it is time to take Mr. Toad “in hand,” correct his wild behaviour and stop him from wrecking any more motor cars.
The three animals visit Toad and Badger administers a private lecture to Toad who agrees to behave but immediately retracts once he is also in the company of Rat and Mole. Toad is then forcibly imprisoned in his own home but manages to escape and promptly steals another car.
The final part of the chapter sees Toad being sentenced by the court for stealing the car, driving recklessly and being cheeky to the police (which carries the biggest penalty!). He is sentenced to twenty years in prison and immured in “the remotest dungeon of the best guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry England.”
Chapter 7 - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
On a summer’s evening, Rat returns home from having had dinner with Otter who is concerned that his son, Portly, has been missing for several days. Mole and Rat decide to stay up overnight and take the boat upstream to help search for Portly while Otter is keeping watch at the weir which he believes is the most likely place in the area to which Portly will return.
Having moored their boat they venture onto a small island where, in a mystical experience, they have a vision of Pan, the Greek god of nature, who has Portly in his care. After Pan has left, Mole and Rat fall asleep and when they wake they see the slumbering Portly nearby as well as the footprints of Pan. The three animals head to the ford in the boat where Portly is reunited with his father.
Chapter 8 – Toad’s Adventures
Toad languishes in gaol, sulks and refuses food. He is coaxed back to life by the gaoler’s daughter who listens to stories of his former life at Toad Hall. Feeling sorry for him, she comes up with an escape plan. Toad disguises himself as a washerwoman in clothes belonging to the aunt of the gaoler’s daughter and walks out of the gaol to catch a train back to Toad Hall.
Realising he has left all his money in gaol he persuades the driver of a steam train to give him a free ride.
The train is pursued by police who want to return Toad to gaol and he confesses his true situation. The driver agrees to help Toad and slams on the brakes at the end of a long tunnel so that Toad can jump off. The train resumes its journey, still pursued by the police and Toad hides in the hollow of a tree until the danger has passed.
Chapter 9 - Wayfarers All
Rat wanders around the countryside one day in early autumn listening to many of the animals preparing to retire to their winter quarters and birds getting ready to fly south.
While lying under a hedge, Rat is visited by a wayfaring rat who tells him of his life. He is originally from Constantinople but travels on ships that visit many different ports. His most recent trip included visits to Venice, Palermo and Marseille.
Rat fetches a picnic basket and they have lunch while his visitor describes the rest of his voyage via Spain and Portugal and eventually to England. The Water Rat is transfixed by Seafarer Rat’s description of his life and is invited to follow him on his next trip. He goes home, packs his belongings and is about to leave when Mole, returning home, gradually brings him back from his fantasy of a new life to everyday reality.
Chapter 10 - The Further Adventures of Toad
Still dressed as a washerwoman, Toad sets off through the countryside and secures a ride on a canal barge piloted by a real washerwoman. She exposes Toad by asking him to do some of her washing and throws him off the barge into the canal when it becomes apparent he has no taste for such work.
Toad rides away on the horse which was towing the barge which he sells to a gypsy in return for a bowl of stew and some money.
Toad is now on foot and walking along a road when he hears a car. Thinking he will be apprehended he lies in the road pretending to be ill and is given a ride in the car (it turns out to be the same car which he stole back in Chapter 6). He persuades the owners to let him drive the car and crashes it into a pond. He escapes, falls into the river and is swept downstream where he eventually arrives at the door to Rat’s house.
Chapter 11 – Like Summer Tempests Came his Tears
Rat lets Toad into his house and gets him to clean up, discarding his washerwoman’s clothes. Toad plans to stroll to Toad Hall without knowing, as Rat then tells him, that the stoats and weasels have taken possession of Toad Hall after storming it one night despite efforts of Rat, Mole and Badger to look after the place.
Toad is by turns boastful of his various adventures and contrite about his behaviour although the authenticity of this contrition is never truly believable.
Badger discloses the existence of a secret passage in Toad Hall that emerges in the Butler’s Pantry and formulates a plan whereby the four animals will emerge through this passage the following evening to take the stoats and weasels by surprise while they are celebrating the birthday of the Chief Weasel.
Amid various comings and goings they prepare the following morning for their attack.
Chapter 12 – The Return of Ulysses
The four friends make their preparations and Rat hands out various weapons despite Badger maintaining he will do all he needs with a stick.
They set off and enter the secret passage under Toad Hall via a hole in the riverbank. The stoats and weasels are having their banquet but are completely taken by surprise by the emergence of Rat, Badger, Mole and Toad brandishing their weapons. Although greatly superior in number the stoats and weasels scatter and control of Toad Hall is restored to its rightful owner.
A celebration banquet is planned but Toad is told that he will make no speeches or sing any songs and must behave modestly and correctly. He complies with these instructions much to the surprise of all his guests.
Reparations are made to the various people who have been used or abused by Toad during his adventures.
Order having been restored the friend live quiet lives and sometimes even stroll in the Wild Wood “now successfully tamed so far as they were concerned.”