Per is doing his military service when he finds out that his girlfriend back home in Stockholm is having an affair. He goes AWOL and tries to find a way back home. On the way he meets Hanna, the daughter of a travelling salesman who joins him on his journey.

Three city kids are taken somewhat reluctantly to a farm out in the forests of Sweden. There they meet the resident country kids who's rosy cheeks and youthful antics mirror the apathy and cynicism of the children grown up in the callous and barren streets of the city. In the country, strange and mysterious things are afoot. Sudden fires, cars braking down and enigmatic sightings point to there being more than the modern man fathoms in the woods. People talk of trolls and beings in the woods, guardians of the land, but the grown ups do not believe and the cynical city children say such talk is nonsense.

A theater group in difficulties begin to doubt their own artistic existence.