Royalty
seems very odd to me, perhaps because I'm an American. It seems so
odd that a thoroughly modern country like Sweden still has a king and
queen, princes and princesses, and laws about who inherits the crown.
Let
alone the fact that each member of royalty has, in addition to his or
her birthday, a name day—the day of the year associated with his or
her name. March 12 happens to be the day associated with the name
“Victoria,” so it is the name day of Victoria, Crown Princess of
Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland,
also known as Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree. (Whew! What a name!)
Victoria
is called the “crown princess” because she is the heir-apparent
to the Swedish throne. (That means that, after her father King Carl
XVI Gustaf dies, she will be crowned queen of the nation.) Sweden
used to award the crown to younger brothers instead of older sisters,
because of that old-time sexist rule that kings were better than
queens (despite some amazing examples to the contrary, such as
Elizabeth I), but the nation changed that rule in 1980, and now it is
the eldest born, girl or boy, who becomes the heir-apparent.
You'd
think that this Swedish princess would have ancestors who were all
pretty much from Sweden...but you'd be wrong! Victoria has some
Swedish ancestry, of course, but her mom was German, and she also has
Brazilian ancestry, including a connection to Chief Tibirica, a
famous Amerindian chief from Brazil.
Also,
strangely, Victoria's predecessors include a tie to the Queen of
England, Elizabeth II. Because of this tie, Victoria is in the line
of succession to the British crown. But there are 204 people ahead of
her in the line-up to be the King or Queen of the United Kingdom, so
there would have to be a huge catastrophe for her to wear THAT crown.
See?
Isn't royalty weird?
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| Snowy Sweden |
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