'Then a boy, pale as death, rushed into the hall, uttering a wild scream of terror. "Death and another are closely pursuing me "' Sintram spends his life torn between the life he leads in his father's castle, where they keep alive many of the more violent Viking traditions of their ancestors, and that of the pious lifestyle of his mother and the Chaplain of Drontheim. When distant French relations, in the form of the infamous Folko of Montfaucon and his lady-wife Gabrielle, come to Norway and become guests of his father, Sintram's life is further complicated by his wish to become a knight as chivalrous as Folko and his infatuation with the beautiful Gabrielle. With the ever reliable Rolf at his side, Sintram must navigate the wildness in his nature, and his native landscape, in a bid to find the cause of the nightmares he experiences every Christmastide, and the true identities of the Crazy Pilgrim and the Little Master.