After I married Mary Ann Tharaldsen , we flew to New York to meet her parents. They were not to happy we did not inform them we were getting married. Mary Ann’s father was very much into his ancestor, Eric the Red, and had done extensive genealogical reasearch. You could say he was a fanatic, like I would turn out to be. He let me know in detail I had married into a noble and famous Norwegian family. He then asked about my ancestors. He was not impressed. No one jumped out at him – from a Viking vessel.

If only he had a say so in who his royal daughter married, like he did in her first marriage to Britt’s father whose name and surname, escapes me. He was blonde and Germanic. They adopted a Eskimo boy, and Eric, an orphan, whom they may have named after Eric the…