An old wanderer buries his mare which had been tortured to death and curses the village in which she was tortured. In this village, old Jancio lives with his young wife Weronika who longs to have a child with him. Jancio is able to turn back the wheel of time and can perform miracles with water: He can make it flow upstream or heal people with it. "Stygma", a vagabond and "false prophet" who makes his money with cheating, convinces Jancio to leave his Weronika and the village to work together with him. Jancio degenerates into a cynic funfair entertainer who lives like a lord. When he and Weronika meet again she has given birth to a child with a devil's tail and he has to realize that he lost his miraculous power. He returns to his wife and village and tries once again to turn back the wheel of time, to make the water flow upstream. The poetical-metaphysical fantasies and motifs of legends in this film, lingering between realtity and surrealism, are based on a rural polonian culture that knows a naive christianity as well as pagan elements.