Kinraddie Castle that year, they tell, had but a young bride new home and she had no issue of her body, and the month went by and she rode to the Abbey of Aberbrothock where the good Abbot, John, was her cousin, and told him of her trouble and how the line of Kinraddie was like to die. So he lay with her, that was September, and next year a boy was born to the young bride.
-- Narration (Prelude paragraph 4)

Importance: The tales of gossip and sexual indiscretion during the historically-focused prologue show how people had behaved in the same ways throughout history and that there was nothing especially remarkable or modern about the behavior of the characters in Kinraddie at the start of the twentieth century.

And he had woods and of fir and larch and pine planted to shield the long, bleak slopes.
-- Narration (Prelude paragraph First section, final paragraph)

Importance: The woods planted by Cospatric Kinraddie during the nineteenth...