Since the death of villager Weber, his widow lives from weaving. Docile daughter Marie helps her with spinning and all other chores, inseparable from pouch Strupi, while her sister Louise invokes delicate hands to do very little for her upkeep. Exhausted from spinning, Marie pricks herself, looses the spool in a water pit and trying to retrieve it, falls in, but emerges in the fairy land of Mrs. Holle. Having been kind and helpful to every creature and talking objects, she's welcomed and praised for cheerfully helping with seasonal chores, which regulate life on earth. Longing to her family, she asks and gets to be returned, with the spool and her dress turned into gold and gets a hero's welcome. Louise can't stand being utterly ignored, jealously pricks herself and jumps into the pit, but in Hole's land remains as rude and lazy, before being returned through the same magical gate, which rewards to merit: as dark and dirty as her selfish heart, with a wise advice as an only prize.