A farmer shelters his brother, a wood carver, from the police who want him for the murder of a local official. In a subplot, a mountain girl finds her soulmate in a young forester.

The opera singer Maddalena had been cast out by her family after they learned she was to bear the child of a banker, von Keller, who had seduced and abandoned her. Her return to her native city has her father warn her to remain away, because she is a threat to her family, and her sister Marie's wedding. However, von Keller threatens the reputation of her family with an underhanded banking scheme. He commits suicide, and Maddalena is reconciled with her family.

The castle-estate Dachenstein is located in the beautiful surroundings of Upper Bavaria and has been farmed for years by the young Baron Georg von Muckenreiter. According to the will of his uncle, the castle-estate is to pass permanently into Georg's possession once he marries someone and makes her the legitimate lady-of-estate. Thus, he must marry! George, a farmer, huntsman and a freedom-loving bachelor, has little love for that, which is eternally feminine and a revulsion of marriage altogether. To his great fortune, however, his friend Heinz Kuppelweger has arrived for a small vacation at the castle. Heinz knows a lot about the "noble women kind" and he's going to help Georg. First, he's going to help Georg with some correspondence to his future, young bride in Belgrade -- Beate -- who is as happy with Georg's romantic correspondence as is her father.

High up in the mountains, a peasant family drags themselves through the towering granite blocks with all their possessions to make a new home for themselves. The mountains, however, have no interest in seeing them make a home up there: for months, huge boulders have been crashing down around them; trees have been falling on the walls of their new home and collapsing it ... and more than one time.