A TALE BEFORE DEPARTURE 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 travel during a flight delay. When questioned about the bag, the man relates a gloomy tale. His tale begins when a clap of thunder sets a peacefully gazing bull into a mad charge trampling the young man to death. The man is linked to the beating and rape of a teenage girl found at the bottom of a rocky ravine. The stranger's narrative follows the cursed son of a soothsayer, forced to flee for his life during the 'Irish Uprising', to New York and a new start. Under a cloud of mysticism, the tale recounts the heartrending account of four generations through tragic marriages, a secreted child's escape into education, a nun's search for identify, a mother's neglect, a man's isolation and untimely deaths.