The story starts out beautifully. A knight’s daughter, Agneta , meets a merman. He woos her successfully and she lives with him for a while. Then comes the day she wishes to visit home. Her husband tells her she must never do certain things in order to go, like bowing to the priest, and off she goes. But when the church bells ring, and she kneels to pray, she is lost to the man who’d loved her for years and had multiple children with. She won’t even look at him. The power of Christ compelled her.