Happily engaged to the poet Amandus, Fräulein Anna is horrified to discover that a beautiful ring, mysteriously deposited upon her finger whilst tending her kitchen garden, forces her into marriage with the gnome Corduanspitz. Can Anna find any way of removing the ring? Will her poet lover shake off his passive demeanor and come to her aid? And has Corduanspitz truly relinquished all ties to his gnome heritage, as he so proudly claims?