NOTE: A version of this paper was first presented as the Inaugural Lecture of the Professor of English Literature at the University of Copenhagen, on 13 February 1996. At that time, Denmark and Britain had already negotiated a means of'opting out' of the single European currency. Subsequently, in a referendum held on 28 September 2000, Denmark firmly rejected the euro. The topic of debate and unease has been the principle of sovereignty. Against European integration, the 'ever closer union', we still, in these northern lands, hear voiced the rhetoric of national sovereignty. And it may not be coincidental that the attachment to the national currency is strongest in countries where the coinage bears the image of the sovereign. Of all the Nordic nations, only the republic of Finland has exchanged its mark for the euro, without resistance or complaint. The three Nordic nations whose currency is the crown Denmark, Norway, Sweden remain, albeit on disparate trajectories, outside the European Monetary Union, as does sterling.