Syttende Mai

Quick-and-Dirty Syttende Mai:

In the early 19th Century, Sweden needed a king. Naturally they asked Napoleon if he had one on hand, and Napoleon sent one of his generals, who took the name Karl Johan and became King of Sweden.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden turned on Napoleon. (Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!) Denmark stuck with France, but then, they didn't have much of a choice. The victorious Great Powers engaged in a postwar reshuffle: they took Finland away from Sweden and gave it to Russia; in recompense, they took Norway away from Denmark and gave it to Sweden. Denmark had long since peeled off Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes from Norway, because nyah.

But the Norwegians didn't want to be part of Sweden. They got together and wrote up a constitutional monarchy, borrowing the spare prince of Denmark as their first King under the new government. The whole thing was signed on May 17th, 1814. Karl Johan said to heck with that, and invaded, but the Norwegians managed to kill more Swedes than expected, so they hammered out a treaty. Norway got to keep its new Constitution, but Karl Johan would be King of both Sweden and Norway, and Sweden would be in charge of Norway's foreign affairs. It's sort of like the Irish Free State, but without the ghastly civil war.

Karl Johan went on to become oddly popular in Norway, for a French general turned invading Swedish monarch.

Just shy of a century later, Norway peacefully seceded from Sweden, once again borrowing a spare prince from Denmark. (The new guy's wife descended from St Olav, so that was a plus.) Norway was free and independent for the first time since 1397! Just in time to get invaded by the Nazis a generation later. But that's another story.

So if you see an abundance of Norwegian flags and folks in bunads, it's just Norwegians politely celebrating their Constitution Day. Don't worry. They probably won't shoot any Swedes.