Have you ever wondered why the days of the week have
such strange names? Across the Africa and the Middle East, Slavic-speaking
countries and Greece, the days are simply named “first”, “second”, etc. or
given a name that describes their position within the week, such as “middle”.
The Greeks named the days week after the sun, the moon
and the five known planets, which were in turn named after the gods Ares,
Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronus. The Greeks called the days of the week the Theon
hemerai "days of the Gods".
The Romans were great fans of giving fancy names to
everything, and the more, the merrier. With the days of the week, they decided
to name each day after a celestial object and the God associated with it: the
sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.
As the Romans met other people, such as the Saxons and
Goths, they had a tendency to draw parallels between their deities and the
Germanic pantheon, which resulted in the Germanic people adopting the same
week, translating the name of the Gods with their own. If they hadn’t, our week
would probably look like this: Sunday, Monday, Marday, Mercreday, Joviday,
Venday and Saturday.
The Anglo-Saxons, who invaded Britain hundreds of
years ago, adopted this idea but substituted their own gods from Teutonic
mythology. The English language has inherited and changed those names a bit,
but the ones we use today resemble those names. Thus:
Sunday:
Sun's Day. The Sun gave people light and warmth every day. They decided to name
the first (or last) day of the week after the Sun.
Monday:
Moon's Day. The Moon was thought to be very important in the lives of people
and their crops.
The sibling gods that carry the sun and moon across
the sky, it is told that they were born mortal, and that their father named his
daughter Sunne and his son Mona after the heavenly lights.
Tuesday:
Tiw's Day. Tiw, or Tyr, was a Norse god known for his sense of justice. While
many Germanic deities are at least partially warriors, the greatest and bravest
warrior of them all is Tiw. It is told that the gods sought to bind a giant
wolf with a magical rope, but this was only possible through trickery.
Wednesday:
Woden's Day. Woden, or Odin, was a Norse god who was one of the most powerful
of them all. The principle god of the Germanic peoples was not, surprisingly
enough, a god of war or of storms. Rather, he was a god of wile, travel and
sorcery. He is said to be the god who either invented or discovered the art of
writing, and gave it to humans.
Thursday:
Thor's Day. Thor was a Norse god who wielded a giant hammer. Thor was the son
of Woden and he may not be the chief god, but he is by far the most renowned
(primarily in his Norse version, Thor). Thunor is a sky god, in charge of
weather both good and terrible, and was especially famous for his thundering
war hammer, which he used to defend mankind from giants and various other
monsters.
Friday:
Frigg's Day. Frigg was a Norse god equal in power to Odin. Queen of the gods
and wife of Woden, Frige is also associated with magic, especially prophecy.
Her station among the gods is shown by the fact that other lesser goddesses
attend to her. She is also the goddess of motherhood, marriage and fertility.
Saturday:
Seater's Day or Saturn's Day. Saturn was a Roman god. The only deity that was
left untranslated, Saturn is a Roman god of time and renewal and is commonly
depicted as “Father Time”, wielding a sickle and a long beard. Most gruesomely,
he is said to have repeatedly feasted on his own children, symbolizing that
time devours everything. Saturn’s holiday, the Saturnalia was a holiday of
role-reversals, where the forbidden became allowed and masters waited upon
slaves.
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