Norway bids farewell to King Harald V as tens of thousands line Oslo streets

On a rain-spared September morning in Oslo, Norway laid to rest King Harald V, a monarch who ruled for thirty-three years not from a distance but from within the lives of ordinary people. Tens of thousands gathered in the streets, and the courts of Europe sent their sovereigns, marking the passing of a man who had made a small nation feel large in the world. His death closes an era of quiet, accessible kingship — and opens a new one shadowed by scandal, yet still supported by the enduring faith of most Norwegians in the crown itself.