A beautiful teenage shepherdess named Adega sleeps one night with a mysterious pilgrim in a barn of impoverished and superstitious Galicia of the nineteenth century. The overwhelming fanaticism of the villagers motivates them to consider the outsider an envoy of Satan, reason why they deny him the lodging. The pilgrim, on the other hand, will react by cursing the people with plague and misery.

After a heartbreaking miscarriage, a couple adopts a stray male dog in hopes of saving their rocky marriage. But as the wife develops an obsessive bond with her new companion, it will trigger jealousies and rivalries that may lead to the most inconceivable act of all.

A prostitute promises to the Virgin Mary not to practice her trade for a year if she heals her sick child.

In the final days of the Spanish Civil War, a married couple of Republican refugees goes into hiding in a northern Spanish seaside town. While the wife stays there with their recently born child, the husband continues North to an uncertain future in France.