The Grimm brothers Wilhelm and Jacob, known for their literary works in the nineteenth century, have their lives dramatized. Wilhelm fights to write something entertaining amongst the sea of dry, non-fiction books they write and he sets about collecting oral-tradition fairy tales to put into print. Their life story is countered with reenactments of three of their stories including "The Dancing Princess," "The Cobbler and the Elves" and "The Singing Bone."

After being shown what hypnotism can do, a doctor starts to study it in depth. When he experiments on a friend's wife, she regresses into an early life, that of Bridey Murphy.