Twenty short stories- brief instantaneous visions of the Gaelic spirit, the peasants and countryside- in a prose with the lyric beauty and intensity peculiar to the Irish writers in the tradition of Synge. The title story, which is indicative, is a finely incised vignette, a poetic parable; the two lovely beasts, two calves, are symbols of a peasant family's bitter struggle for life and prosperity at the expense of the community.