www.smh.com.au
Hail Mary!
By Nick Galvin
October 18, 2003
Alongside Lego and those tasty breakfast pastries, Australians can now add a third thing they know about Denmark - Tasmanian Mary Donaldson.
Donaldson is the 31-year-old Taroona High old girl who will become a Danish princess when she marries Crown Prince Frederik next year.
Naturally, the Hobart press is agog with this real-life fairytale. Try the Hobart Mercury for a pretty typical report about the girl who would be queen.
In contrast, you'll find little evident excitement on Taroona High School's rather austere site. In fact, when we visited the site of this Hobart school, its most famous old girl didn't even rate a mention.
Of course, folks in Denmark want to know everything about their new queen-to-be.
"Mary charms Danes" is the heading on a report in Denmark's only English-language newspaper, the Copenhagen Post.
"It is fantastic to be able now to come out in the open now about our relationship," Donaldson reportedly said at her first news conference, "although I cannot recall ever imagining I would one day become a princess. I wanted to be a vet."
Obviously, you can take the girl out of Tassie ... however, as Holly Byrnes reports in The Sun-Herald, there have been some pretty strenuous efforts to prepare Donaldson for her new role with fashion, deportment and language training.
She might find some assistance with the latter over at Unforgettable Languages, which promises a basic grasp of Danish for $US8.75 ($12.66) in just three hours and includes gems such as this. "The Danish for BUTTER is SMOR. Imagine you smear butter on yourself."
Once she's finished mentally smearing herself with butter, getting a handle on the history of her new in-laws is likely to be just as tricky for former real-estate agent Donaldson. There's an excellent potted history of the Danish Royals at Royalty.nu, starting in the 10th century with the wonderfully named Gorm the Old.
There's a more extensive spiel on Frederik and his family at the official Danish monarchy website.
The Crown Prince also has his own site, in English, featuring plenty of detail about his betrothed. Was it the fact that Donaldson was captain of Taroona High School's hockey team that won his heart or did her Certificate in Direct Marketing from the Australian Direct Marketing Association seal the deal?
Frederik's own resume is a little longer and reveals plenty about the prince and his wide-ranging interests.
It wouldn't be generally known outside Denmark that he is an honorary member of the Danish Mongolian Society or that he is patron of the Scandinavian Furniture Fair.
Some of the information, however, cries out for further explanation. For instance, just what do you have to do to become a Knight of the Order of the Elephant? The site also makes it clear the prince is not short of a quid. In fact, his annual pocket money from the state is 3.7 million Kroner, which is about $850,000 - and he doesn't have to bother with details such as income tax or the Danish equivalent of GST.
In her quest to become expert in all things Danish, Donaldson could do much worse than to spend some time studying the Visit Denmark site, the online home of the Danish Tourist Board.
Under the heading "Trendy Denmark", Donaldson will learn that "in an affluent, classless society like Denmark's, cultural concepts such as design, arts and crafts, cuisine and fashion are accessible to all" and that the country is "currently enjoying a new cultural awareness".
Just like Tassie, really.
She'll also learn the tourism marketers have already started touting her upcoming nuptials on May 14 next year as a great reason to visit Denmark.
There's a slightly less anodyne introduction to Denmark over at the excellent Lonely Planet site.
"With little to get angry about ..." notes Lonely Planet, "post-Viking Danes have had to file down their horns and make their mark in more civilised fashion ... by inventing Lego toys ... and producing some talented upstart soccer players."
And finally, for anyone out there looking to meet their own prince, you could do worse than to head on down to Sydney's Slip Inn for a couple of schooners - that's where Donaldson unknowingly started her path to becoming Danish royalty two years ago.
