Synnöve lives with her parents at the farm Solbakken on a sunny hill. Thorbjörn, who lives at Granliden in the shadow of a big mountain, often looks wistfully up to Solbakken. As teenagers they meet and fall in love. Another boy, Knud Nordhaug, is also yearning for Synnöve.

It's the beginning of the 1800s. A feud between the people of Ödemo and Rävgården has been going on since the dawn of time and now it's worse than ever.