On All Saint’s Eve, the equivalent of modern-day Halloween, Gruadh and her friends and handmaidens go out into the local village. Una, the coal-burner’s wife, is telling fortunes by cracking eggs in water and making predictions about whether or not young women will marry, but she makes sure to pull Gruadh aside to tell her a special prophecy.

Una tells Gruadh some information she already knows or suspects—Gruadh expects Macbeth will become king, and she has heard before (from Mairi and Bethoc after her very first vision) that she will have two or three husbands in her lifetime. However, Una…