Happy Woden’s Day

Yes finally it is a post. I know I went all the way ‘til Wednesday without providing something for your reading pleasure. I have been busy.

I usually write my posts during the day at work. There are slow points and I make myself busy by writing most of the stuff I post. I was even working on another post complaining about being busy and wishing I was doing something else like being a marine biologist, or wildlife photographer, or a microbiologist who created an enzyme that attacks animal vocal cords allowing them to speak like humans. But that really wasn’t going anywhere.

I was also thinking of writing a post about traffic and really slow drivers. Where I live people have no idea how to use a gas pedal. I was almost ripping my hair out this morning. They couldn’t find their gas peddle if their life depended on it. Their impending doom could be closing in on them and it wouldn’t matter. A tidal wave, magma, King Kong, Mothra, Godzilla, Son of Kong, a dinosaur, the Fog, the Mist, the Blob, the thing from the black lagoon, vampires, dragons, lions, tiger, and bears oh my and they still would be moving at 40 km/h. But no I already did a post recently on that and Cory did one a while ago. I guess I will have to live with it. I will grip my wheel, scream, complain, give dirty looks, shake my fists and just get on with it.

What does any of this have to do with what I am writing about today? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just thought you would like to know.

I am going to tell you about the origin of the days of the week. It is something that few people know about even though it is something we have to deal with every day. This may come in handy for final Jeopardy or that pesky “Word Origins” category one day.

Origin of the Days of the Week

Everywhere I looked I was getting different answers to the origins of the 7 day work week. One thing is for sure, it has been in use for a really long time. It may have come around in ancient Mesopotamia and then was picked up by Rome in 321 A.D. I also read that the wide spread use of the 7 day work week was perpetuated by Christians who used it to further the church. It was even included in the bible. God created the world in 6 days and on the seventh day he rested. The British Empire adopted the calendar and it was spread all over the word as they developed colonies.

The actual names of the days were developed from the seven celestial bodies that at the time were believed to revolve around the Earth. They were the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. So originally it was Sun’s Day, Moon’s Day, Mars’s Day, Mercury’s Day, Jupiter’s Day Venus’s Day, and Saturn’s Day.

But it doesn’t stop there. The Germanic languages they substituted 4 of the names of the Roman gods with the German equivalent. Mars was replaced by Tiw (Tyr), the god of war; Mercury by Woden (Odin), the god of wisdom; Jupiter by Thor, the god of thunder; Venus by Frigg, the goddess of love. These new day names were adopted and you have Tiw’s Day, Woden’s Day, Thor’s Day, and Frigg’s Day. Now it sounds a lot closer to what we say today.

As the years went by, in English, the words were shortened and spellings changed. That is how we have ended up with Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

To make it easier here is a chart.

Celestial Body

Conversion

Origin

English

The Sun

Sun

Sun’s Day

Sunday

The Moon

Moon

Moon’s Day

Monday

Mars

Tiw

Tiw’s Day

Tuesday

Mercury

Woden

Woden’s Day

Wednesday

Jupiter

Thor

Thor’s Day

Thursday

Venus

Frigg

Frigg’s Day

Friday

Saturn

Saturn

Saturn’s Day

Saturday

And now you know.

I hope your Woden’s Day is treating you well.

Tra

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Tra

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