Norway’s Princess Märtha Louise shows off her new children’s book

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By Jaana Laitinen
     
      The second visit to Finland by Princess Märtha Louise of Norway attracted a good deal of media attention in Helsinki on Tuesday of last week.
      The Norwegian princess has written a children’s book entitled Why Kings and Queens Don’t Wear Crowns. It is a fairy tale based on her own family’s history, and she was in the Finnish capital to tell the media about the work.
     
The story begins when Princess Märtha Louise’s grandfather Olav came with his parents from Denmark to Norway in 1905 in order to form the new Norwegian Royal Family.
      As foreigners, the family initially suffered from a relative lack of popularity among Norwegian people. The problem was resolved in great measure by Prince Olav, who was tired of sitting with a crown on his head. He wanted to go skiing with other children.
     
Soon the king and queen became enthusiastic about the sport, too, and the Norwegian people began to rather like their royal family after all. The crowns were taken to the cathedral in Oslo, where they were put on display.
      "The moral of a story can be for example that children can teach their parents many things. Like in this story, the little prince found a solution to the problem", notes Märtha Louise.
     
Princess Märtha Louise’s message seems to be that the most important thing is to wear a crown in the heart - to be a genuine person.
      Actually Princess Märtha Louise does not even have a crown. "In Norway, only the King, the Queen, and the Crown Prince have crowns", says the princess.
     
Even though the princess says that the book also contains her own experiences, she was not willing to comment in Helsinki on the news relating to her alleged clairvoyant powers and planned school with alternative treatment programmes. The subject caused quite a furore back home, also prompting discussion of the difficulty of combining the roles of royal princess and businesswoman.
      Princess Märtha Louise claims that she has psychic powers and is planning to start a school that will teach people how to communicate with angels. She has studied physiotherapy, trained as a Rosen therapist, and studied at an academy for holistic medicine.
      The princess is married to author Ari Behn and has two daughters. As the daughter of King Harald and Queen Sonja, Märtha Louise is the fourth in line to the Norwegian throne.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / Abridged from an article first published in print 19.9.2007


Links:
  Princess Märtha Louise of Norway (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat