Lady Macbeth: Chapter 14  Summary & Analysis

One day, Gruadh looks for Macbeth and finds him in the room where they keep falcons. She wants to know about his former wife, who he explains died in childbirth. Gruadh also asks him to send men to Fife to ask for her cousins Mairi and Bethoc to come help with her birth. She explains that she only trusts her own kin to deliver her child.

Macbeth is offended by the implication that he would sabotage the birth. Gruadh clarifies that she is more worried about King Malcolm. As they leave, Macbeth offers Gruadh his hand, but she does not take it.

Three days later, Gruadh’s contractions wake her. She gets up to pace the fortress. She runs into Banchorrie, whose wife has had seven children, and so is familiar with childbirth. He offers to serve as her birthing chair. She also runs into Macbeth, who expresses concern. He wants to send for a local midwife, but Gruadh refuses his help.

Over the next day and night, Gruadh labors but cannot deliver her baby. Maeve and Aella help her as best they can. Maeve invokes the goddess Brigid but it does not help, and Gruadh goes through a second day of unfruitful contractions. Maeve unties all the knots in the room and unbraids Gruadh’s hair to try and coax the baby out. She also performs various rituals to discourage fairies who might steal the child.

Although Gruadh stubbornly waits for her cousins Bethoc and Mairi, Macbeth eventually goes for a midwife himself. She arrives hours later and introduces herself as Catriona. Like Maeve and Aella, Catriona also prays to the goddess Brigid and performs rituals, but unlike those two women she is an experienced midwife and is able to turn the child, who was facing the wrong direction in the womb.  With Maeve and Aella’s help, Catriona and Gruadh finally deliver a healthy baby boy. Relieved, Gruadh returns to bed. Macbeth visits his wife and stepson, and for the first time Gruadh sees him smile and warms to him.

Macbeth jokes that the baby looks just like Gruadh, and luckily looks nothing like Gilcomgan. Gruadh agrees that the baby is like a “small, perfect, fragile” mirror of herself.