When the gods appear in disguise the only person who shows them hospitality is the young girl Shen Te and for this she is awarded by them. After a while she finds her new life has also brought new problems.
Nils lives with his parents in the south of Sweden. He is a naughty boy and teases like the animals on the farm. They should not have him and be happy if he is bewitched one day with his hamster Crumb for punishment by a gnome.
Young Anna Rydell comes to a boarding-school for girls. She is very shy and the other girls don't really try to get to know her. The French teacher Martin Andreasson, who Anna falls in love with, lives at the boarding-school with his wheel chair-bound wife. Her handicap has made her depressed and Martin finds it hard to love her like he used to do.
Old lady Malin Klintbom is being promised a cosy and comfortably life at the residential home she is invited to visit. However, she finds the home impossible to live at and flies in panic to her cabin.
Bolle gets tired of working at the cigar factory and because of his desire for freedom he takes to the road. He and the other hobos have only one problem and that is the mounted policemen chasing vagrants.