Illswater

Illswater is the lake that defines the geography of the minister's lodge near Rush Margins in Wend Hardings, where Frex and Melena live at the beginning of the novel. It is the body of water visible from the cottage doorway, across which Frex can see the chimneys of Rush Margins smoking at breakfast time. The lake's surface and the road that runs along its edge are the immediate setting for the family's domestic life and for the arrival of the Clock of the Time Dragon, which precipitates the crisis of Elphaba's birth.

Geography and Setting

Illswater lies in the district of Wend Hardings, a remote and impoverished part of Munchkinland. The minister's lodge is situated on its shore, with a view across the lake to the hamlet of Rush Margins. The lake is large enough that a wind coming up over it can smudge the columns of kitchen smoke. The road from the lodge to Rush Margins follows the lake's edge, and it is along this road that Frex travels to confront the Clock of the Time Dragon. The lake's receding margins during the drought create crude docks that become walkways over pebble and drying greenrot, with the water pulled back beyond their reach.

Events at Illswater

The lake is the backdrop for the novel's opening domestic scenes: Melena's pregnancy, Frex's departure to preach against the Clock of the Time Dragon, and the early days of Elphaba's infancy. It is also the site of Elphaba's first disappearance as a toddler, when she is found sitting under a dock with the looking glass Turtle Heart made, staring into it and murmuring "Horrors." The dock, which rises from the receded margin of the lake, ends in air, a bridge to nowhere. The lake's water is something Elphaba cannot abide; she will not go near it, and her parents and Nanny know this. When she is lost, they head toward the lake in fear, and find her beneath the dock, sitting in the folded forearms of a beast.

Associated People and Groups

The lake is primarily associated with Frex and Melena's household. The fisherman's hut where Frex stops to ask for women to help Melena is on the lake's shore. The road along Illswater is the route Frex takes to Rush Margins and the route Nanny travels when she first arrives at the lodge. The lake's presence is a constant in the family's isolated life, a feature of the landscape that Melena, who came from the elegant Colwen Grounds, finds monotonous and maddening.

Changes and Narrative Significance

Illswater's receding margins during the drought are a visible sign of the environmental hardship that afflicts Wend Hardings. The lake's water level drops, and the docks become stranded. This drought is part of the broader crisis that makes the Clock of the Time Dragon's promises of prophecy and pleasure so appealing to the desperate farmers and fishermen of Rush Margins. The lake is thus not merely a setting but an active element in the story's atmosphere of isolation, want, and impending change. Its waters, which Elphaba fears, are the opposite of the water that will eventually kill her, creating a thematic contrast between the lake she avoids and the water that finally dissolves her.