It's 1842 in Prussian-dominated Poland. Something sinister is happening in the poor, bucolic countryside surrounding the town of Lasin, causing peasants to keep their doors locked. It begins when peddler Moishe (Moses) Karnowski, the Chasidic rabbi's son, who is alienated from his father, stumbles upon a coven of Satan-worshipers deep in the forest and becomes possessed by twelve devils. He terrorizes the countryside committing murders, rapes, a kidnapping and sacrileges to the local Catholic churches and cemetery. He seduces fifteen-year-old Polish virgin Marta Nering, who gives birth to Valentine, who will become the thread uniting subsequent books. There's a cultural clash: Catholic Poles, who want their country back and freedom to practice their religion, Lutheran Prussians, who want to turn them into German Lutherans, and Jews. The Prussians are importing colonists from purely German areas and homesteading Polish land to them. Polish collaborators with the government clash with resisters to it. Moishe is apprehended and undergoes first a Jewish-, then a violent Catholic- exorcism. He is tried without a jury by a trio of judges for whom the outcome is predetermined, and executed. All leads to a surprise ending.