Norway. The 1800s. Endre must to take over the family farm from his father - his father, who swings the sickle and sharpens the scythe, and says this is the only way in which rocks and stones and mounts and waves can still be ours. But Endre is strange, he keeps to himself, unlike his brothers who are merry and full of joy. He wants to live in the farm without longing to leave, but he is struggling. Then he meets Abelone - 'the bearer of light.' Tall and thin, always sitting with her books, sharper than all she went to school with, she is about to be a teacher. They appear to come from different worlds - one from the ancient, traditional, natural world ; the other from the forward-looking world of modernity, of breaking away, and of renewal. But there is love - great and immediate.