"Skal vi ta denne fortellingen for god fisk?"

"Skal vi ta denne fortellingen for god fisk?"

"Should we accept this story as good fish?", that is to say, "as genuine?"

The line was in a story about King Haakon VII, the first of modern Norway's kings, grandfather to the present king. As you might guess, a Swede said that Haakon had a long-term affair. The details are beside the point. Of course he had an affair: he probably played golf, too. No! That is the point!

I love the expression, which no golfer or tennis or cricket player could have imagined using. "Should we accept this story as good fish?" could only have made sense to a nation of fisher-folk.

Daniel once told a woman in the Lofoten Islands the the fish drying on racks smelled really bad. "It smells like money to me," she told Daniel.

The present king of Norway has chosen not to comment on whether his grandfather had an affair. Anyway, if a Swede accepts it as genuine, we cannot possibly accept it as good fish.

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