A generation or two ago, in a time when the Faroese industry was marked by decline and poverty, there was an arrangement where people without land could gain access to arable pastures on the King’s land.

This novel is about some of the people who settled on the edge of society and about their destiny.

Although it in many ways is gloomy the story is not a tragedy. There is plenty of humour and in the end the patient and persevering ones manage to create tolerable living circumstances for themselves and to found a new village.