La primera de les adaptacions que Sjöström va fer de l'obra de l’escriptora sueca premiada amb el Nobel, Selma Lagerlöf, dissecciona una comunitat camperola tradicional del segle XIX que expulsa del seu si una noia que ha tingut un fill il·legítim. Un film sobre la hipocresia moral i la situació de la dona.

A 1917 Swedish drama film directed by Victor Sjöström, based on a 1913 novel by Selma Lagerlöf. It was the first in a series of successful Lagerlöf adaptions by Sjöström, made possible by a deal between Lagerlöf and A-B Svenska Biografteatern (later AB Svensk Filmindustri) to adapt at least one Lagerlöf novel each year. Lagerlöf had for many years denied any proposal to let her novels be adapted for film, but after seeing Sjöström's Terje Vigen she finally decided to give her allowance.