Three Scottish noblemen escape from Gripsholm Castle and breaks in to the home of Lord Arne. They kill everyone except for Lord Arne's adopted daughter Elsalill.
To save intoxicated friend Boman from getting caught, two conscripts lock him up in the local jail and release a prisoner, Ivan Jansson, so that he can pretend to be Boman for a few hours. But when the real Boman is transported to the county jail, switching them back could be difficult.
A ring passes between a lot of different people, giving the bearer or someone close a new meaning to life. Actors, embezzlers, old ladies and cheated husbands all seem to gain temporary hope from misery and disillusionment.
Marine Bo Fredriksson is travelling home on a leave. He reminisce about an accident he caused as a 12-year old which killed a young girl, an event that has made him feel revulsion for death. Back home he meets Eva, a girl he fancies and they move together to Stockholm to start a life together.
A small-town piano teacher is shocked by the arrival of her foster daughter's real mother, whose young lover soon follows and causes further disruption.
An out-of-work musician is desperate for work and when his best friend sees an add requesting a cellist he signs him up. However, the work is for a female, so he creates the character Märta Letterström and joins the trio at a small-town hotel. But being a woman is not as easy as you think.
A female reporter invents a story about a man who threatens to take his life to protest the injustices of society. But the scam is about to be revealed. She is forced to persuade a tramp to play the fictional man.
Early 1940s, during WW2, pitch black waters except for a moon-shadow over the waves. Surrounded by minefields and the fog slips in the sweeping headlights of the cargo ship S/S Rune. But the ship bows relentlessly forward through the night.
"The Ingegerd Bremssen Case" - The young nurse Ingegerd Bremssen walks on a lonely road in the woods and gets attacked by a man. He rapes her and disappears. A passing car picks up Ingegerd and drives her to a mental hospital, where she is taken care of. But she has suffered a severe shock and considers her life completely ruined.
