He's Born, He's Borne explores a primitive, medieval world which exists outside of actual human history. The inhabitants of this world are agrarian peasants who work the land, and are all too human in their battles to live in spite of their superstitions and struggles. When a young child falls from a tree, the angel of death comes to claim him for the underworld.

The father embarks on an effort to hide the child with help from one of two angels who are overseers of the stars and planets of the night sky and other random tasks they don't fully grasp. Everyone, including the angels, speaks in a language as broken as their circumstances while wandering monks speculate in highly formal language.

Almost too weary to feel emotion, these men and women labor on, absurdly comic in their ignorance and their effort to understand and decide anything about their lives, particularly whether or not another child should ever be permitted to be born.