When Felix is born to commoner parents, he's foretold to be destined for all kinds of luck and happiness, including a royal bride. King Ottokar, who is obsessed with his alchemist quest for gold, hears of it, promises to raise the boy in the palace, but puts him in a basket in the stream. The blacksmith and his infertile wife raise the foundling as their own. When Ottokar realizes, passing in that town on the search for alchemist literature, the happy violinist must be Felix, he orders his performance at his spoiled heir princess Isabell's birthday, but joins a sealed instruction to execute its bearer. Felix is caught by rebels, who decide against killing the 'royal flunky' after reading the letter and substitute a counterfeit instructing the prelate, who acts as regent in the royal absence, to wed her to the bearer. Startled, the protesting princess and musician obey and develop unspoken affection. Ottokar returns, is irate, but decides to demand from his unwanted son in law the impossible key ingredient to his latest gold formula: golden hairs of the devil. Felix accepts to attempt a probably fatal raid on hell, but Isabell disguises herself as a male wanderer to join him. Having found the ferryman of the Jordan (Styx), they find a surprise ally in the devil's grandmother.