Head to Edinburgh Zoo and you will see Nils Olav. While he might look like a completely ordinary King Penguin, Olav has served in the Norwegian King’s guard since 1972. In his military career, he has been knighted and become the highest-ranked penguin in the military.
That is, of course, a lot to take in so let’s go back to the start. Way back in 1913, a wealthy Norwegian family gave Edinburgh Zoo an opening gift in the form of a king penguin.
Jump forward to 1961 and things look quite different. Edinburgh Zoo now has a whole penguin colony, a colony which a lieutenant in the Norwegian King’s Guard became so interested in during a visit, that in 1972 he arranged for his regiment to adopt one of these penguins.
This adopted penguin was given the name Nils Olav, honouring Nils Egelien, commander of the drill platoon, and Olav Sigerud, contingent commander of the Norwegian King’s Guard at the time.
To make the adoption even more official, Olav was brought into the King’s Guard, given the rank of lance corporal in the battalion. Before you start imagining a penguin charging into battle, this rank was purely (and unsurprisingly) only ceremonial, with Olav remaining at Edinburgh Zoo.
Over the years, tradition has kept. Olav received a promotion with each return of the King’s Guard to the zoo, becoming a corporal in 1982 and then sergeant in 1987.
Sadly, Olav died shortly after becoming a sergeant, but the legacy lived on. A new penguin was dubbed Nils Olav II, continuing the rise through the ranks of the Norwegian King’s Guard.
By 2005, the Olav name had reached the rank of colonel-in-chief, an event marked by a bronze statue of the penguin being revealed at the zoo.
Thanks to his rapid rise through the military, Olav eventually received a knighthood in 2008. Not only was this the first knighted penguin in the Norwegian Military but the Norwegian King described Olav as “in every way qualified to receive the honour and dignity of knighthood”.
Jump forward to today and Nils Olav III has taken over, currently under the rank of major general, outranking his namesake Nils Egelien. While he isn’t serving directly in the military, Major General Sir Nils Olav III has just become a father, marking Scotland’s first king penguin egg in 17 years.
