Elisabeth, wife of a landowner, has kept from her husband for twenty years that their daughter is not his. Rather, she is the result of an affair with a musician she was dating shortly before their marriage. Now this man, by now a famous concert pianist, enters her life again. Elisabeth resists the temptation to sink once again into the arms of her romantic lover. Since she loves her husband, she stays with him and continues to keep her secret...

At his uncle’s behest, the young Karl-Heinrich, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Karlsburg, is sent to Heidelberg to study for a year. After a joyless youth in the gloomy, stately Karlsburg Castle, the prince embarks on the most carefree period of his life. He falls hopelessly in love with Käthi, the charming daughter of his landlords. But duty calls: the prince is gravely ill, and Karl-Heinrich must return to assume his duties as heir apparent and future ruler.

Ever since a little girl received a red cap from her grandmother—which she loves to wear—everyone has called her “Little Red Riding Hood.” Little Red Riding Hood lives with her mother and her five brothers in a little cottage on the edge of the forest. Since their father passed away, Little Red Riding Hood’s brothers have been working as lumberjacks to support the family. The little girl helps her mother with the housework as best she can. When Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother falls seriously ill, her mother has to take care of her, while the girl handles the chores at home and also prepares meals for her five brothers.

12-year-old Jakob helps out at his mother's vegetable stand and also carries customers' purchased goods home. One day, an old woman with a long nose comes to the stand and claims that the herbs are bad and were better 50 years ago. Jakob is upset that she holds all the herbs to her nose and crushes them: "Take it away from your long nose!" he shouts and hits her hand. "Don't you like it, my beautiful long nose?" the woman scoffs, "You should have one too, even longer than mine." Finally, she buys some cabbages, which she wants Jakob to carry home for her. Jakob resists but is persuaded by his mother. Other market women whisper whether the old woman is not the evil fairy Kräuterweis.

A Brothers Grimm fairy tale involving siblings finding a gingerbread house in the middle of the forest owned by an evil witch who captures them and by fattening them, intends to have them for her meal.