Can murder and death be predetermined by the utterances of a drunken curse?

A stranger carrying an unusual cloth handbag engages in conversation with a fellow traveler during a flight delay. When questioned about the bag, the man relates a gloomy tale. His tale begins when a clap of thunder causes a peacefully grazing bull to stampede into a young man. The trampled man's body is later linked to the beating and rape of a young girl found comatose at the bottom of a rocky ravine.

Shrouded in mysticism, the traveler's narrative chronicles four generations of tragic marriages—a soothsayer's cursed son forced to flee Ireland during the Irish Uprising, a secreted child, an alcoholic mother's neglect, self-imposed isolation, and untimely deaths.