Understanding comes from a tree. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Reference to something that will not occur before the return. Masters of the house are discussed. Woman who anoints hero is also the only one to know who he really is.
Author makes the anointing woman a heroine in name or in deed.
As MacDonald alleges many times in his book, Mark goes out of his way to signal his Greek-speaking readers that they are to understand his stories in light of their deeply embedded, nearly universally held notions about the Homeric hero, Odyssey, and his associates.