This topic might have been brushed, explored fully, discussed to the point of deletion, or ignored before, but since I am a new user, I thought that would make up for my ignorance ;-)

I'm curious as to how many of you non-scandinavian AG readers understood the symbolism in Wednesdays name. This is not an attempt to rub my own smarts in your faces ;-) It should be pretty darn impossible for people not acquinted with any scandinavian languages (and mythology as well) to unwind the symbolic thread. In fact, I'm a little surprised Gaiman did it.

But here is where my post turns awkward and a tad insecure. Perhaps Gaiman didn't do it, and he never meant for the name Wednesday to be associated in the way that I did. Well, then he's got a quality that will endear him to me as an author ever further - impossibly twisted luck in probability issues ;-)

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Don't judge a book by it's contents'

[This message was edited by Ionas on August 01, 2003 at 09:06 AM.]

No, he understood fully. The symbolism of the various days of the week are a frequent topic of discussion in a variety of fields, from history through sociology and out to linguistics, so, in academia, it's not that unusual to know about it.

It has been brought up here before, and discussed. Once by a bunch of Scandanavians, which was interesting.

Well, if we hear any inspirational power chords, we'll just lie down until they go away.
-Giles
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AJGraeme

[This message was edited by Dweller in Darkness on August 01, 2003 at 12:17 PM.]

Is there more to it than just that Wednesday is the day devoted to Odin?

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Is your place in Heaven worth giving up these kisses?

it is odin's day. actually, my friends and i were trying to fiugre out the etymology of the word, and figured it goes something like this:

odin=wodin (or wotan, depending on who you as)
so wodin's day. say really really fast.

see? sounds kind of sort of like wednesday.

There is serenity in Chaos.
Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane. -Principia Discordia

Something along those lines, but not quite. 'Wednesday' is a translation of the original scandinavian word. The original is 'onsdag', which [and I'm sorry to say it's not very abstract or hard to discern ;-)] is a direct combination of 'odin's' and 'dag', where 'dag' is swedish for day. Thus, odin's day, onsdag.

Wotan is a gaelic/germanic incarnation of Odin, and never existed in the original scandinavian myths. I think the name has it's roots and origins in the Beowulf saga. Wotan, as a deity, was never really worshiped, from what I've understood, but only appeared as a litterary figure. Although I'm not certain, I don't think the english wednesday comes from Wotan [although it certainly sounds like it, it would surprise me, considering what little impact wotan had on gaelic/english culture].

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Don't judge a book by it's contents'

Well, I admit that the common Webster's dictionary is not the most definitive source, but it gives the etymology of "Wednesday" as being from the Old English "wodnesdaeg," which jibes pretty well with what I'd remembered.

Old English (Anglo-Saxon) was much more clearly a Germanic language than is Modern English, both in grammar and vocabulary. (I studied it for a couple of semesters in college.) And the Anglo-Saxon pantheon had some similarities to the Norse.

- Cho

Especially when Odin looks up at the sky when it thunders and lightnings and says, "Well it looks more like Thursday"
and I believe he mentions a woman being in charge of Friday if I am correct.

They teach a lot of those origins and such in grade school. I was always fascinated with the word origins of the months and days being gods and kings so I noticed it right away, to the point that I figured out it was Odin earlier than I think Gaiman expected some people to.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
No, he understood fully.

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Especially since in the Kindly Ones, he makes explicit mention of the fact.

Opium is the religion of the masses.

I got it right away, but I'm a pagan, so I don't know if most Americans would get it or not.

Yeah, I got it too. I read the name and thought "Oh. He's Odin." And I'm American. And not Pagan.

Here's a puzzle for you, though, in dealing with etymologies. In German, the word for Friday is "Freitag". If you take the word from its literal components: "frei" and "tag" it means "free day". Which is apt if you think of Friday as the beginning of the weekend. But the actual derivation of the word comes from Friday being "Freya's Day", and it was a woman's day and a day of rest for the men.
So here's the puzzle. German and English derive from a very close root. Given that Friday is Freya's day, and also that friday is Free Day, did our word "Free" derive from the germanic "Freya"?

Discuss.

*discusses*

Well, our word comes from the Old English frEo, which comes from High German frl. It's closely related to similar words in Sanskrit and Welsh. So, it's quite possible that the name Freya is descended from the same root as the word free, but it seems unlikely that free descends directly from Freya.

Iona,
I don't know whether to smile or be offended at what you seemed to be implying (that we didn't understand the significance of the name Wednesday for the "Gaiman's" character in American Gods). I'll just smile, it's alot easier and alot more dignifying.

I'd known for some time, because I studied Asatru for a brief period of time some years ago. It just made sense to me, either way it goes and I thought it was quite clever of him. Neil Gaiman has a way of hiding things in plain sight, so they're not really hidden at all.

Hey ThorneFox...what is Asatru? Just curious.

If you're looking for the short version, it's a like a form of Norse Paganism, they're basic values include: Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance and Perseverance. Of course, they use some of the Norse deities in their rites, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know too much about it, considering that when I was deciding on whether or not to get involved in it, I was only taking what I wanted from it (which is everything I saw a little under the surface) and it's been four years since I've really ever seen the word.

Thanks...interesting. I'll research it some.
Cheers,
mm

i think mr. gaiman knew fully well the implication of "wednesday". anywayz, here's a list of the days of the week, in their anglo-saxon roots:
sunday - sun's day
monday - moon's day
tuesday - tiw's day (tiw=tiu/tyr)
wednesday - woden's day (woden=odin)
thursday - thor's day
friday - frigg's day (frigg=freya)
saturday - saturn's day

i thought this was common knowledge these days..i studied this kind of thing when i was like 10.
I immediatly got Wednesday and who he was, but i completely missed low key jones as loki( because you see him first and not again until he pops up as loki).

Any one that has a decent appreciation of Gaiman's weaving of mythology is likley to know things like this, and please lets not forget that many of Gaimans early fans where in the geek farm and as such, even if this information was new to them they would likely go and research it all rather quickly once learning the reference to Odin.