Episode list

Carl-Sebastian Urse, called Mon Cousin, makes in 1937 a visit to his native place Hedeby. His cousin, the baron Carl Gustaf Urse, still runs the family estate Valla, but is in financial difficulties. He has to borrow money from the bank as well as from the local farmer Lille-Lars, and now there is a wildcat strike at his lime-works as well. His wife, the baroness Louise Urse, is an alcoholic. To get some relief from his financial and matrimonial problems Carl Gustaf spends his spare time chasing young women. At the moment his desire is focused on Märta Svensson, the daughter of an odd-job man, Sixten Svensson. In the village the local policeman is occupied by chasing bootleggers. Being an alcoholic himself he is not very successful in this. An attempt to arrest the shopkeeper ends in the policeman being carried away on a wheel-barrow, totally drunk.

Sixten Svensson is work-shy. He avoids employments and he doesn't want to work at home either. Because of this his family sinks into poverty, and his wife has to beg her parents for money and their neighbors for food. Their daughter Märta is well aware that baron Urse is highly interested in her. She dreams of getting married to the baron and to live a fashionable life with him, but his wife forms an obstacle to this. When the baron offers her an appointment as a housemaid, she declines the offer because of his wife. Outside the village shop some of the villagers are inspecting the raft which is used every summer when they cleanse the stream from too much vegetation. This is a yearly event, which turns into a ritual festivity of great importance for the village. To be chosen as one of the men on the raft is a great honor.

The villagers are gathering in the shop to elect this year's crew for the raft. They need three men aboard and one to tar the vessel. After a tense discussion Erik is elected as the second man on the raft, while Percy is appointed to do the tarring. Percy gets furious and leaves the meeting. The alderman Abraham then suggests the disregarded Nikodemus to replace him for the tarring, and Svensson to be the third man. At Valla baron Urse, Louise and Mon Cousin sit alone, since all servants have left them, because of no salary. Suddenly Urse remembers the election. He turns up at the meeting, proclaims that he invites all of them to dinner at the inn, and surprises everybody by suggesting himself to be the first man on the raft.

At the first day of the stream cleansing Erik awakens at 4 o'clock in the morning, but he has to wait for two hours until Svensson and baron Urse turn up at the raft. Svensson has brought along two crates of beer and some aquavit, and he and the baron spend most of the day drinking and talking, while Erik is doing the cleansing. When it's time for lunch they have just cleansed a small part of the stream. The other villagers understand that this will not work. The Fox Breeder says that Svensson and the Baron must be replaced the following day, and asks Nikodemus and Elof to be prepared for this. At midnight the baron has a secret rendezvous with Märtha in the wood. He asks her to run away from Hedeby together with him. After some hesitation she agrees. Hidden in the greenery Erik watches the scene.

When Märtha awakens in the morning in the wood, after the night when she lost her virginity, she is alone. The Baron has left her, and gone back to the night camp of the men on the raft. Märtha feels deceived, and runs crying to her grandmother. A group of villagers arrive to the sleeping men at the riverside. They declare that the Baron and Svensson must leave the raft, and be replaced by Elof and Nikodemus. The Baron feels humiliated, being treated like a farm-hand by the villagers, and when he walks home, he is overwhelmed by feelings of being disliked by everybody. With a new team aboard the raft, the river is soon cleansed, and the men on the raft are met with cheers by the villagers. Nikodemus has achieved a new position in the community, and this brings about a complete change in his self-esteem. He is not a hen-pecked husband anymore. When he tells his wife that her love-affair with the shop-keeper has to stop, she embraces him tenderly.

The game is up for count Urse and many other things in Hedeby also come to an end.