Woodwinds are used throughout to introduce Gaelic folk melodies, with violin often being employed as a fiddle, either solo or in duet.
The three acts vary stylistically, although some musical gestures are common to all three, such as long rising glissandos in the string section.
The three sons ask the Doctor (who had been a friend of their father) for advice and in response he tells a parable of a bride who swore to love one man but was forced to marry another.
On the way the Father laments … an extra mouth to feed, the misfortunes that have befallen him … and then he sees a golden glow emanating from a hill and is lured in by fairies.
Then the Husband emerges, still a young man and blissfully unaware of the passage of time, while the Friend and Policeman have aged and withered.
The Daughter, now a grown woman, is singing a folksong as she works in a hillside pasture when a Stranger appears.