In this solo episode of the How to Live in Denmark podcast, host Kassandra Melish explores the complex relationship between Denmark and Norway, weaving personal family anecdotes with historical and cultural commentary. She begins by sharing her own family’s claimed Norwegian royal lineage, recounting a humorous trip to Oslo where her mother and aunt wore crowns on a flight. Melish then outlines the centuries‑long political union of the two nations, noting the close similarity of written Danish and Norwegian and the mutual intelligibility of spoken language. She highlights the affectionate ties—such as cheering for each other’s football teams and Danish doctors working lucrative stints in Norwegian fjord towns—while also exposing a persistent undercurrent of envy. This envy manifests in comparisons of natural attractions (Norwegian mountains vs Danish beaches), cultural capitals (Oslo vs Copenhagen), and especially economic fortunes: Norway’s oil wealth versus Denmark’s concerns about funding its welfare state. Melish recounts the popular legend that a drunken Danish negotiator, Per Hakerup, handed Norway the Ekofisk oil field in a 1963 meeting, a story many Danes still believe. She adds a Norwegian urban legend about a secret room in Oslo’s National Museum holding the empty Johnnie Walker bottle that supposedly made Norway rich. The episode concludes with calls for listener engagement on social media, reviews on iTunes, and promotion of her How to Live in Denmark book.
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Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kassandra Melish. There was no podcast last week. I was out of town for Stor Beta Day. which translates to Big Prayer Day, a holiday that only exists in Denmark. So on Twitter and Facebook, I asked you listeners what you wanted to hear a podcast about. There were several votes for a podcast about Danes and Norwegians. Now, I have to confess, I have a personal relationship to Norway. My grandmother's family comes from Norway, and as my mother was growing up, Her mother told her that our family was Norwegian royalty. Now, never mind that there was no modern Norwegian royalty until 1905, when the country became independent, and our family came to the U.S. 30 years before that. My mother grew up being told she was a lost Norwegian princess. I think it was something that her grandparents, who were immigrants, did to make their kids feel special. Fast forward 60 years, and my mother and her sister, who of course would have also been a Norwegian princess, got a chance to visit Norway for the first time. My mother, who has a good sense of humor, wore a crown on the plane. She and her sister got crowns at a costume store and wore them on the SAS flight to Oslo. She said the stewardesses really loved it. When they got off the plane, they they did the royal wave. And then they went to the Royal Palace in Oslo and had their picture taken out front wearing their crowns. So, bottom line, I'm not sure the Mellish family is welcome in Norway anymore. But back to the topic you wanted to hear about: Danes and Norwegians. Danes and Norwegians were part of the same country for hundreds of years, and they're still family. Written Danish and written Norwegian are very similar. So similar that I once tried to find a Danish-Norwegian dictionary and was told there was no such thing. The spoken language is a little more different, but Danes and Norwegians can still understand what the other's saying. Danes and Norwegians like each other. They care about each other. They sometimes even cheer for each other's football teams. But like any family, there's envy involved. Envy. For example, there's envy of each other's geographical pleasures. Norway has beautiful mountains, great for skiing. Denmark has windswept beaches, which the Norwegians seem to love. Lots of summer holidays in Denmark. Denmark has Copenhagen, which, let's face it, is a cooler town than Oslo. It just is. I'm sorry, Oslo. But Norway has those beautiful isolated towns on the fjords, with their brightly colored wooden houses and their long summer nights. If you know any Danish doctors, you'll know that they frequently take a week or two off and go and work in one of those isolated Norwegian towns where they can make a lot of money. Now we get back to the envy again. Norway has money, and it didn't used to have money. For hundreds of years, Denmark was sort of the big brother in the Danish-Norwegian relationship. Even the Norwegian royal family— the real one— is descended from a leftover Danish prince. His name was Carl. He was a second son. They sent him to Norway, and he took the name of Haakon. And the rest appears in the weekly Norwegian supermarket tabloids. Danes used to see Norwegians as kind of non-threatening, kind of cute, colorful mountain people. Sort of like the English see the Scots. Over the past 30 years, though, Norway has become rich— richer than Denmark, possibly the richest country in the world— because of North Sea oil. Denmark has to worry about how it will finance the welfare state in the future. Norway doesn't. There's a feeling among some Danes that some of that oil should have been Danish oil. During a meeting to divide up the waters between the 2 countries in 1963, The Danish negotiator, Per Hakerup, was photographed with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Now, the rumor is that he was drunk during the meeting and gave up the Ekofisk oil field to Norway, which has earned billions of dollars from it. Now, for the rest of his life, Per Hakerup denied being drunk at the meeting. His family has actually hired historians to dispel the rumor. And the truth is, is that at the time, no one even knew about the oil. They thought they were dividing fishing grounds. But a lot of Danes still believe the story. They believe that some of Norway's oil money should have been theirs. Envy. Now, some Norwegians may believe it too. There's an urban legend that there's a secret room in the Norwegian National Museum in Oslo that holds the empty bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey that made Norway rich. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. Go to our Facebook page and tell us what you think about the relationship between Danes and Norwegians, or tweet us at How2LiveInDK. The 2 is a number. Please do me a favor, and if you like this podcast, review us on iTunes. Your local iTunes is great. It doesn't have to be the Danish one, or whoever your podcast provider is. It helps other people find us. See you next week. Remember, the How to Live in Denmark book is available for download on amazon.com. You can read it on any phone or tablet. All you need is the Kindle app, and the Kindle app is free. The book's not free, but it's not very expensive either. If you read the book and enjoy it, please leave a review on your local version of amazon.com. It helps other people find the book and find the podcast.
