41 pages • 1-hour read
The River Has Roots
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
In rural England, the River Liss runs south from “its secret sources in Arcadia” in the north (1). The river carries the magic of grammar in its water, turning the wilderness around it strange. Transformed by the conjugation of grammar, the rocks become jewels and the flowers bloom out of season, mixing time and space in unpredictable ways.
However, as the river continues south, it meets two enormous willow trees that stand on either bank. Willow trees are “great grammarians,” taking what the river conjugates and transforms and “translat[ing] its grammar into their growth” (2). These two enormous willow trees that stretch across the river are the Professors. The willows remind people of “something or someone [they’ve] lost” (3). As the river passes into a long procession of willows, it grows slow and steady so that by the time it reaches the town of Thistleford, it is “quite tame.”
Chapter 2 Summary
The Hawthorn family owns the land and willows along the River Liss, from Thistleford to the region just past the Professors, called the Modal Lands. The Modal Lands are a shifting, in-between space separating the human lands from Arcadia, the land of Faerie (also called Antiquity). A series of standing stones called the Refrain mark the boundary.
The Hawthorn family trade is the willows themselves. They plant and harvest the willows for their magical properties, making baskets, furniture, musical instruments, and grammarian wands from the wood. Some people use willow-bark nets to catch “raw, unfiltered grammar” from the river (6). However, this is dangerous because those who are touched by the river’s grammar risk becoming “marred,” transformed and lost.
One of the Hawthorn family’s primary tasks is to sing to the willows, including the Professors. The family’s daughters, Esther and Ysabel, fulfill this task with voices so perfectly harmonized that those nearby can feel the magic around them. Esther is the older sister, with dark hair and a gregarious personality. Ysabel is the younger sister, with light hair and a shy disposition. They love caring for the Professors. Their father told them that the Professors were once forbidden lovers who ran from their homes and became trees. Their mother says that the Professors sacrificed their lives to protect their families. Either way, the sisters respect them. Twice a year, they sing the “Professors’ Hymn” to thank the trees for their translation of the river’s grammar.
The sisters are close but have differences. Esther prefers “harps and riddle songs,” while Ysabel likes “flutes and murder ballads” (10). The two tease each other about their preferences.
Now, their conversation turns to Arcadia, where there is no singing. Esther knows this from her friend Rin, an Arcadian. Singing is not forbidden in Arcadia, and Rin loves to hear her sing, but the Arcadians themselves cannot sing, only play instruments. Ysabel remarks that if Esther leaves her to join Rin in Arcadia, she will simply have to visit her there to make sure that Esther does not forget the words to their favorite songs, like “Tam Lin.” Esther teasingly accepts this condition, though she insists that she would never leave Ysabel.
Chapter 3 Summary
Traditionally, the Hawthorns marry people from outside of Thistleford. The townsfolk are never surprised when a Hawthorn travels away and returns betrothed. The Hawthorns also find partners “whose names [sit] on them lightly enough that they [don’t] mind shedding them to dwell among the willow-lined banks of the River Liss” (15), as if the willows themselves ensure that each Hawthorn marries someone suitable who will allow them to continue their duties.
Esther’s suitors have proven to be the exception. Her first is Samuel Pollard, a gentleman farmer who owns land near the Hawthorns and wishes to unite the families and their lands. However, Esther does not like him. She finds him overly familiar and obsequious. His attempts to be gallant are overbearing and irritating. To her confusion, Ysabel likes him—even his mediocre poetry. Her second suitor is Rin, whom she keeps secret from all but her sister. Esther is conflicted about Rin: Though she enjoys puzzles and riddles, she has not yet been able to solve Rin.
Chapter 4 Summary
Esther first met Rin while walking in the Modal Lands when Rin appeared as a storm. When Esther sang, the storm calmed. When the rain ended, Esther found a silver bracelet by her feet. Confused, she left the bracelet in the grass and walked home. She then met Rin in the form of an owl. Esther sang to the owl until it flew away and then found a jeweled cup and the silver bracelet sitting by the river. Again, she left them.
The third time she met Rin, they appeared as a beautiful woman playing a harp and asked why Esther would not accept payment for her songs. Esther explained that she sang the songs freely, but Rin insisted on repaying her, trying to give Esther their harp. Esther recalled her discomfort with Samuel Pollard’s courting gifts, understanding that some gifts “force[] a bond on her that [i]s awkward and difficult to refuse, and how payment c[an] dispel that” (24). Rin wished to dispel any sense of debt, and Esther offered a compromise, asking Rin to teach her to play the harp as payment. She then introduced herself, but Rin already knew who she was, having heard of her from Agnes Crow, a human woman in Arcadia. Esther remembered Agnes as the woman who had helped the two sisters when they became lost in Arcadia as young children. Feeling bold, Esther suggested that she and Rin might share things with each other in the future.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The first chapter of The River Has Roots establishes the tone and style of the narrative, which mimics oral storytelling with a third-person narrator who makes asides and occasionally addresses the audience. The prose likewise echoes the tone of the folklore and murder ballads from which it draws its inspiration. Each unnamed, unnumbered chapter is also accompanied by a simple black silhouette illustration, such as an image of the willows or a harp. These illustrations loosely mimic the style of famous fairy-tale illustrator Arthur Rackham, best known for his black silhouette illustrations for renditions of “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella,” and add to the novella’s folkloric style. Additionally, the style is consistent with the poetic, lyrical prose for which Amal El-Mohtar is known, relying heavily on rich imagery, metaphor, and wordplay.
Indeed, wordplay, including puns and double meanings, is a significant motif that contributes to both the plot and themes of the novella—in particular, The Power of Language. This is clear from the first page of the first chapter, which introduces “grammar” as both the rules that govern human language (the word’s conventional meaning) and as a wild magic carried in the River Liss, sourced from the magical Faerie land of Arcadia. The novella establishes these dual meanings in part by highlighting the connections between the words “grammar,” “gramarye,” and “grimoire” (1). Gramarye is an archaic Middle English word meaning magic or enchantment, and a grimoire is a book of magic or spells. All of these words originate from the Latin and Old French “grammaire,” which simultaneously referred to the art of language and the art of magic incantations (“Gramarye.” Merriam-Webster)—in other words, the magic inherent within the spoken word. This is just one example of the kind of wordplay and layered meaning that the narrative employs to underscore the power (and magic) of language.
The first chapter also introduces the symbolism of willows, which are “great grammarians.” Willows filter the wild grammar out of the river and translate, or transform, it into something more contained and controlled that humans can use and harvest. Additionally, the willows known as the Professors explicitly mark the boundary between the strange and magical Modal Lands and the town of Thistleford. Thus, willows symbolize the human impulse to impose control over nature (including via language), as well as the boundary between wildness and cultivated human environments. As Chapter 2 makes clear, however, this boundary is permeable, which allows humans to access some of the magic of grammar but also exposes humans to the risk of wandering too close to the Modal Lands and being irrevocably “marred.” This foreshadows Esther’s ultimate fate—the river’s transformation of her into someone who cannot return to human lands, at least in the same form.
The novella does not introduce the two protagonists until the second chapter, electing to focus on the concept of grammar and the mutability of language in the first chapter. This indicates that the magic of grammar is as important as the characters themselves and a crucial component of the narrative. Only after establishing this does the narrative shift to the characters, introducing Esther and Ysabel Hawthorn in Chapter 2, Samuel Pollard (the principal antagonist) in Chapter 3, and Rin (the principal love interest) in Chapter 4.
In keeping with the style of folkloric ballads, the novella depicts the characters in broad strokes, often using figurative language rather than specific detail or deep psychological complexity. For instance, the narrator describes the sisters’ voices with a simile of raindrops on a windowpane, associating them with the natural world they live alongside. Pollard has the “beseeching expression of a whining dog” (16), a comparison that conveys his wheedling demands and Esther’s distaste for them. Rin, who defies concrete description as an Arcadian, is described entirely in metaphor. Even their real name, which Esther cannot remember and the text does not provide, is more image than sound, likened to the “glint of frost on the long grasses in a winter dawn” (16).
The only two characters with any concrete specificity are Esther and Ysabel, yet even they adhere to the folkloric formula in several ways. One is dark haired and associated with winter. The other is blonde and associated with summer. One is popular with men; the other is not. However, from this point, the narrative deviates from the traditional formula. Indeed, in a moment of metafictional commentary, the novella notes this deviation, saying that “if this story were a folk tale or an old song” (8), Esther would be cold, and Ysabel would be joyful. Instead, Esther is the more friendly and gregarious sister, while Ysabel is shy and often overlooked. Moreover, in contrast to the usual folktales, it is the oldest sister, Esther, who has multiple suitors, while Ysabel looks on with mild envy. Such differences frame the novella as both an homage to and a reworking of traditional folklore; it is part of a tradition but also distinct from it. The most significant difference involves the sisters’ relationship, as the narrator constantly makes clear that the two sisters love and support each other in all things. Their unshakeable bond forms the basis for the theme of The Importance of Sisterhood and Familial Bonds, which is a crucial deviation from folklore that depicts women as in competition with one another.
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