The Blodoks learn their family history is accurate
The discovery of the Viking artifacts in a cave above the western town of Cedar City immediately attracted the attention of the press. An article was sent throughout the United States by the Associated Press, and was widely published although the vast number of newspaper editors regarded the discovery as a hoax and the fantastic story of an island riding a wave to Utah as a fairy tale to rival Pinocchio.
But in Hoboken, where the item had appeared in a column of recent oddities in the Hoboken Sentinel, Eric Blodok's eyes widened as he read the news account. From his father and his father's father before him (both now deceased), Eric had been told the Blodoks had once been rulers of a Viking kingdom in the American West that had been taken from them by force by the United States Army many years before. Eric had always believed the story to be fictional, an attempt by the family to add a little pizzaz to the Blodok's lineage, but here was evidence the story was true, an almost exact accounting just as his father had related it to him.
The Blodoks are heirs to an entire city
Eric and his wife, the former Clara Rattazzi, were elated by the Cedar City, Utah, discovery. At last proof existed their ancestors were once Viking royalty and, joy of all joys, they were heirs to an entire western city. The Blodok family string of bad luck had ended, they rejoiced, and the Blodok name would yet again be listed in the Social Register.
The news that a New Jersey couple was laying claim to the city was not so favorably received in Cedar City. Few believed the documents found in the military trunk were real and even if they were, Cedar City was unwilling to turn over the product of a century and-a-half's labor to a Hoboken used car salesman. The documents must be examined by experts, the city fathers decreed, where surely they would be found to be forgeries. Thus, the documents were turned over to the famed Hofmann Laboratories.
Cedar City is faced with a bill for more than $90 billion
Three weeks later the city was stunned when informed by Hofmann document experts that all of the papers found in the trunk had been carbon dated back to the mid-1800s and, further, the signature of James Knox Polk was authentic. The Blodoks, the Hofmann Laboratories concluded, were indeed the legal owners of Cedar City. The calculations of a hastily assembled panel of accountants placed the city's worth (it had a population in 2004 of 25,000) at $887 million. President Polk had promised King Blodok to pay him 100 times the property's worth, so for Cedar City to retain its independence the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse deduced the Blodoks were owed a staggering $88.7 billion, plus interest.
But who would pay the bill? Not Cedar City, its mayor insisted, noting that it would be impossible for the city to come up with such a large sum and that even to attempt such a thing would throw the city and all its residents into bankruptcy. No, the mayor argued, it was President Polk who had made the offer so the debt to the Blodoks would have to be settled by the federal government.
Government hold secret meetings to deal with Himmelsk
In secret meetings at Camp David, the president of the United States and six members of his cabinet huddled to discuss the Blodoks' claim. To pay the Blodoks the sum to which President Polk had agreed, $88.7 billion (plus interest), explained the Secretary of the Treasury, could result in a major deficit to the federal government. Employees would have to be laid off and wars postponed. The president argued that the government should appeal the matter to the courts. Maybe President Polk would be found to have made an illegal proposal or to have been mentally unbalanced. After all, paying 100 times the property's worth would surely be considered usurious. But, warned the head of the Justice Department, what would happen if the courts sided with the Blodoks? At the meeting's conclusion, the decision was made to parley with the Blodoks and, if necessary, give the city back to its ancient ruling family.
'The Treaty of Himmelsk' is ratified
It is alleged that what has become known as "The Treaty of Himmelsk" was crafted by none other than Henry Kissinger (although he vehemently denies having taken part in any way in the discussions, as does President Bush and his cabinet). Since the treaty in effect gives the Blodoks the right to once again assume kingship over the land of the old Himmelsk, few, if any, will admit to being party to the discussions. After all, the treaty agreed to allow a monarch to reign over a piece of American soil, the very principle the nation rejected in the War of the American Revolution.
The Blodoks, who would have much preferred the money, were nevertheless persuaded by the crafty negotiator Kissinger to settle for the status of king and queen. When the Blodoks realized that no salary went with the king title, and that the used car lot/billiards parlor would probably be lost were they to absent themselves from New Jersey for a significant amount of time, the new monarch agreed to confine his reign to a maximum of 10 days a year.
Cedar City agrees to hand over town to the Blodoks
Relieved--but embarrassed that alone of any town or city in America, it had been sold by the federal government into monarchy--Cedar City reluctantly acquiesced to the treaty. At the insistence of the newly crowned king, April 1 on the old Norwegian calendar, a date of some significance to the Himmelskn kingdom, would be the starting point for the annual reigning period, and that throughout the period Cedar City would revert back to the name of Himmelsk, the appellation the land had held for so many centuries. The corresponding date on the Julian calendar currently in use to the Norwegian calendar's April 1 is approximately April 14.
As their first act of monarchy, King Eric XV and Queen Clara decreed that henceforth the reigning period would be known as The Festival Royale, and that it would be a period of feasting and celebration.