It''s the year 1581. Seventeen-year-old Silje, daughter of Arngrim - a hammerman at a huge mansion near Trondhaim, lost all her family during a plague, and now the girl is wandering about the city. Suddenly she finds a little girl whose mother is dead. Silje takes the child with her to get warm by bonfires where the plague victims'' bodies are being burnt. By the way she finds a new-born baby and takes him with her, too. She doesn''t know that the baby''s mother is a rich noblewoman Charlotta Meiden, who left her baby away in a forest just after the birth because she was ashamed and noone knew about her pregnancy.
By the bonfires Silje meets a very strange man - he is very tall, mysterious, with very wide shoulders and uncanny face. The man asks her to pretend being a princess and save his brother''s life. The girl agrees because she likes the man condemned to death. Pretending his wife, Silje furtively delivers him a letter which is a prove of his innocence. Then they all go to the mountains, where the mysterious man leaves Silje and the children at the mansion of Benedict the painter and two elder women. Silje calls the girl Sol and the boy - Dag. She learns that the uncanny man''s name is Tengel and that he is a member of a mysterious tribe called Icepeople. Icepeople live high in the mountains where nobody dares to go without a necessary. Soon it appears that Silje is very good at painting, so she helps Benedict to paint a church. The girl finds out that she is in love with Tengel. The men is always around whenever she needs his help. One day he tells her the story of Icepeople - his family full of witches and wizards who have to hide in the mountains because of their extraordinary abilities. He is also one of them - he has ability of cure. Sol appears to be the daughter of Tengel''s sister.
One day Benedict''s sister, Abelone, comes and disturbs all the peace of Benedict''s mansion. She wants to get Silje and the children off because she thinks Silje wants to marry Benedict and inherit the mansion. To avoid being accused of magic, Tengel takes the girl and the children up to the Iceoeople Valley. There they must get used to special terms and people - some of them are really scaring, but most are ordinary, poor people who hide in the Valley not to be arrested and killed by the Inquisition. Several ages before, their terrible ancestor Evil Tengel negotiated a pact with a devil and since then in every generation of Icepeople one child has abnormal abilities and sometimes also a terrible look and very wide shoulders that kill their mothers during the birth. Most of them are bad, but there also good people. Silje''s Tengel has a terrible look, but he is a good man. Silje meets Tengel''s aunt Hanna. Hanna is a real bad witch, but somehow she tollerates Silje. Tengel understood that he loved Silje, although he didn''t want to marry her because he was afraid their child could kill her during the birth, too. After all, Tengel and Silje got married. Soon their baby was coming... The labour was difficult, but there suddenly came Hanna and helped the baby Liv to be born...
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