Terje Vigen, a sailor, suffers the loss of his family through the inflexibility of another man. Years later, when his enemy's family finds itself dependent on his benevolence, Terje must decide whether to avenge himself.

A newly elected village parson is required to marry his predecessor's widow. However, he's already married, and the woman is old enough to be his grandmother.

A stranger comes to work at widow Halla's farm. Halla and the stranger fall in love, but when he is revealed as Eyvind, an escaped thief forced into crime by his family's starvation, they flee and become two of the many outlaws of Iceland's mountains.

In a small provincial town there is a hotel run by one of those eccentric cooks of long ago who made generous meals that have nothing in common with the extravagant restaurateurs of nowadays and their meagre menus. The manager is named after Alexander the Great and in his restaurant the town bourgeoisie meet and discuss various issues, especially matters of the heart. Morals are part of the conversations and prove to be complicated issues even for strict and serious Nordics. 28 minutes of runtime are missing and presumed lost.

Helga is a young single lady who has a baby by a much older married man. After the older man tells Helga's father that he refuses to pay child support because he isn't the child's father, her father insists that Helga take him to court. On court day, just as the older married man is about to swear on the Bible that he is not the father of Helga's child, Helga suddenly tells the court that she's dropping the case because although the man did father her child, she doesn't want him to commit perjury, which is not only a serious crime but a mortal sin as well.

The widower Jakob Vindås lives with his daughter and his mother in a small west coast fishing community.

Part one of an ambitious screen adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf's book Jerusalem.