The film tells a story taken from an old saga: Audun is a poor Icelandic Viking who wants to pay his respects to King Sveinn of Denmark in a grand way. He thus sails to Greenland, where he spends all he's got to buy a polar bear to bring as a gift to the Danish monarch. We then follow Audun's adventures in Norway, Denmark, Rome and then again in his homeland, a much richer man than when he left.