The Beloved King

In one of the streetcars in Oslo, the capital of Norway, a lady tourist sat beside an elderly man, and when she was about to get off, he asked to carry her heavy bag for her. The lady thanked him, and no sooner had her eye fallen upon the man than she said to him: "Your face, sir, is not strange to me." The bearer of the bag answered her: "I am King Haakon — you may have seen my picture somewhere!" For the King on that day, as always, was without a royal guard... How many times have people seen him buying his personal needs himself, or sitting in a public park, or eating in a humble restaurant!

These are stories that may seem astonishing to the reader, but the Norwegian people have grown used to them and no longer find anything astonishing in them, for many of them come into personal contact with their monarch every day...

King Haakon sent his son Olav to the public schools. And the Crown Prince, at the celebration of his birthday, would write on the blackboard: "All the pupils in the class are invited to my birthday..."

And when the King celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth, the people held a great festival for him, and his pictures were hung everywhere. It happened that an American visitor had newly entered Norway, and as he passed through the streets he was dumbfounded to see this picture on every wall, and said to his companion: "It appears that this man Haakon is standing for parliament!"

King Haakon, Danish by origin, has ruled Norway, at the invitation of its government and its people, since 1905. The people loved him with their whole heart, for they found in him the ideal man in everything they could desire. He is a sportsman of the first order, and practices skiing — the national sport of Norway.

What most vexes King Haakon are the official occasions, at which he must receive the people's supreme marks of respect. It happened once that a man of the common people was shown into his office.

After a spell of silence the man said, at the opening of his talk: "May my lord excuse my conduct, for I am not accustomed to appearing before the King!" The King reassured him, patting him on the shoulder: "No matter, my friend! I too am not accustomed to being a king!!"

And the children of Norway look upon their monarch as upon a father who is tender toward them and loves them. It happened that the King once passed a band of children playing in the snow, and one of them threw a snowball that struck the back of his neck. The aide was scandalized that such an act should come from a child toward his monarch! He stepped forward to scold the child, branding his act a want of respect! But the King checked him, laughing: "Do not scold him. When I was his age, I threw a snowball at Queen Victoria — only in those days they never discovered who had done it!"

And in the year 1940, when the German armies descended by "parachute" upon Norway and occupied it militarily without prior warning, they proposed to King Haakon that he form the ministry, but he refused absolutely to cooperate with the Nazis, and a warrant of arrest was issued against him... The Germans set about blowing up peaceful, populated villages with dynamite, with the intent of putting an end to his life. The King was in continual travel, never sleeping two nights in one place. At last he assembled the council and declared before them the reasons that compelled him to depart temporarily from the country he had loved and to which he had devoted his life... He closed his words, with tears wavering in his eyes: "May God bless the departure!"... and after that he sailed for England...

And the Norwegian people remained loyal to him with an utter loyalty; they would greet one another with no phrase but: "Long live the King!" And they wrote his name in large letters everywhere — even on the doors of the Nazi camps! They knew no peace of mind until the Germans evacuated their lands and that long-awaited day arrived with the return of King Haakon to them... The people's welcome to him was deeply moving: crowds massed at the harbor and their cheers for him rose until ears were deafened... "Long live the King! Long live King Haakon!"

Translated from "Reader's Digest" magazine