The Farmer Germund is planning a wedding between his daughter Marit and Mats, the son of a neighboring farm. Everything seems to be going according to plan until Marit meets the fiddler Jon, an illegitimate son who enchants the youth with his violin.
1813. The Swedish army is fighting in the War of the Sixth Coalition. The popular general Von Döbeln is arrested for sending the army against the French in breach of orders by the crown prince. At the court martial he is sentenced to death but is pardoned by the king and sent to prison instead. A group of conspirators are planning to set him free and make him their leader in a coup d'etat.
Eva Örn is a newly graduated teacher, who becomes a school teacher in rural Vikarlunda. She is a beautiful young woman with firm opinions and she does not live up to the locals' picture of the ideal female teacher. She has an affair with the pastor, Ingvar Hagson, but they have to keep their love a secret.
Kalle and his girlfriend Blenda is on his way home from Tivoli, when he says that he will be away for two years as mate on a sailing ship, but swears her eternal fidelity. During the trip takes on board Bessie that has wrecked his vessel, the Donald withstand the temptation of a beautiful woman on board while Blenda waiting at home?
At the end of the middle ages, Ursula is accused of having poisoned her own husband. She claims she is innocent, but to prove it, she must submit to a ritual: trial by fire, walking on fire along a path leading directly to a crucifix. A film that has been much commended for the visual creativity shown by the director in successive blending in of images involving Ursula, her husband, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ. Much applauded, also: the performance of Jenny Hasselqvist, thus described by French director René Clair: “We shall never forget her flaming eyes, the severity of her spirit, her abrupt and alarmed expressions, like an animal under threat.”
Mr. and Mrs. Gyurkovics have a dozen children the oldest of which, the twins Géza and Bandi, just preparing for their matriculation examination. When graduation day has come Géza refuses to set up but taken by force by the principal's henchmen. When dad Gyurkovics later dies, takes over Bandi goods while Géza becoming an officer cadet in the nearby garrison city.
The farmer Knut Husaby has a daughter, Aslaug, who is the most beautiful girl in the village. Many boys are after her, but Knut and his two sons drive them away, if they come too close to the farm. Aslaug is secretly in love with Tore Naesset. But he is only a smallholder's son, and when he asks for Aslaug's hand, her father just laughs at him. Instead her father wants Aslaug to marry Ola Thormundson, a gawky boy, who is the son of the wealthiest farmer in the village. Aslaug brings her family's cattle to the Husaby summer farm up in the mountain. Only one road leads to the summer farm, and it passes right by the main farm. When Tore returns from a visit to Aslaug in the mountains, Knut and his sons beat him black and blue. As it's impossible for him to use the road anymore, Tore has to figure out another way to go to Aslaug. Next Saturday he crosses the fiord in a rowing-boat. He stops at a fifty meter high wall of rock, and starts climbing it, hoping to reach Aslaug at the top.