Princess Astrid of Norway, older sister of the late King Harald V, died at 94. [1] Reuters filed the palace announcement two days after Harald's state funeral. [1] Wednesday this paper printed that funeral. Friday the family file moved again.

King Haakon said she had represented the Royal House in a warm and dutiful manner, in the same Reuters wrap. [1] NRK filed the death for the Norwegian desk. [2] A death notice is not a constitutional crisis. Print the age and the relation. Leave succession to a later named act.

Flags at half-mast are ceremony. Ceremony is not a new reign. Print Friday's death. Do not invent a second bulletin.

Print the death. Saturday is not a second palace notice.
Haakon's tribute, warm and dutiful, is the palace's own epitaph, and monarchies choose such words carefully. Ninety-four years, most of them in service. Friday records the age and the relation, nothing more.

Careful words outlive their subjects; Friday's are chosen. Chosen words endure. The palace records, nothing more.

The palace records the age and the relation, nothing more. Haakon's tribute is the epitaph. Saturday is not a second notice.

The palace notice on Friday is Astrid's death at ninety-four, two days after the state funeral. Haakon's warm, dutiful phrasing stays tribute. NRK carried the Norwegian bulletin in parallel. The page keeps her as Harald's older sister, not as a rewritten crown.
Friday is Astrid's death at ninety-four, two days after the state funeral. Haakon's warm, dutiful phrasing stays tribute. NRK carried the Norwegian bulletin in parallel.

Friday's Oslo file is Astrid at ninety-four, two days after Harald's burial. She is Harald's older sister, not a rewritten crown. Friday is her death notice, not Wednesday's funeral.

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels