Boas, the 11-year-old son of a priest, lives in a village by the North Sea. The fishermen have not been able to put out to sea and provisions for the villagers are dangerously low. One day Boas sees a strange creature on an ice flow and he believes it to be a demon. One night the villagers decide to hunt for the creature, but the shots fired by the hunters set off a mighty avalanche. The "creature" though is just a dark-skinned boy who speaks a strange language...