The Greeks named the days for the known celestial bodies. There are seven. I include the name, the planet, who it is named for, where applicable and a reference in Spanish because it parallels better. In English:

Sunday: The sun

Monday: Moon

Tuesday: Mars Norse parallel is from Tiw or Tir a norse god of battlefields. (Notice, in Spanish, Martes.

Wednesday: Mercury. This is a refrence one can guess to the swiftness of Odin, fastest horse and such. (Spanish is Miercoles.)

Thursday: Jupiter. Thor's day, another Thunder god. Spanish: Jueves for Jove (Zues)
Friday: venus. Norse Parallel: Freya or Frigga, sources differ. Viernes in Spanish

Saturday: Saturn. Jove's father. This is a mystery to me 4 norse, one Roman. (In Spanish it is Sabado for Sabbath.)

Actually, Wednesday is a curruption of "Wotan (or Wodan)'s day", a day that was holy to Odin. Tuesday was Tyr's day, another member of the Norse pantheon (the Sword god, if I remember correctly. Thursday, as you said, was Thor's day. Friday was the day that was holy to Freya, a Norse earth-mother type goddess. Saturday is not Saturn's day, as I always thought, but a holy day devoted to Sataere, the Teutonic god of agriculture, who is supposed to be merely another personification of Loki. Sunday and Monday are...well... Sun day and moon day.

As the Norse Myths are Germanic, and English is a Germanic language, we have adopted many words from Norse Mythology. Another interesting example is the four directions, North, South, East and West. They get their names from four dwarves that Odin enlisted to hold the sky apart from the earth (the earth having been made by Odin from the flesh and bones of the original being, the giant Ymir; the sky was made from his skull, and the fluffy clouds were his brains, which I think Wednesday makes a reference to in A.G...but I digress). The dwarves names were Nordi, Austi, Sudri, and Westri.

Facinating stuff. At least to me.

Well, this is not exactly on the Gods+days topic, but it's neat all the same...

Eastern (Chinese and Japanese and so on) tradition has five elements, right? Wood, metal, earth, fire, and water (as opposed to the western hermetic traditions earth, air, fire and water. I don't care what anyone says -- "spirit," while a great addition, ain't in the original hermetic layout.)

So the Japanese days of the week are named after each of these elements, plus the sun and the moon. (I don't think this is an original Japanese concept, as there is no reason for a 7 day week in Japan...)

Anyway, I thought it was cool. Interesting trivia, at least.

kismet - aspiring to be a trivial goddess.

What about the Months of the Year then?

September, October, November and December used to be the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months of the year, sure. August is named for Emperor Agustus (as the Sandman comic by that name points out) and July is named for Julius. June I think is named for Juno, Jupiter's wife. What about January through May?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
"Japanese days of the week are named after each of these elements, plus the sun and the moon."

That *is* cool

"I don't care what anyone says -- "spirit," while a great addition, ain't in the original hermetic layout."

The words "so what?" come to mind. Hermeticism isn't the only style of magic out of old Europe, but even so, it seems to me that the Hermetic magicians I know use Spirit as the sum of the 4 elements put together. 4 elemental corners, spirit in the middle. It seems to work just fine.

Actually, I've always wondered why there's no *Air* in the Eastern elements. I thought originally that Metal and Wood split Earth, but then Earth is still there, and Wind isn't. Does that seem odd to you? Guess it's just my round-eyes logic...


--Ember--

[This message has been edited by EmberLeo (edited 07-05-2001).]

I know January is named after Janus, the two faced god of the new year. March is after Mars. September, October, November and December are all numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10. I don't actually know why though. That accounts for everything but February and April. :-)

www.pantheon.org says that Februus was the Estruscan god of the underworld and purification, and that February was named after him. encarta says that April is from Aprilis, from aperire, to open, cause that's when the flowers open, also called Eostre (Easter) month by the Anglo Saxons.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. But I got curious.

may \May\, n. [F. Mai, L. Maius; so named in honor of the goddess Maia (Gr. ?), daughter of Atlas and mother of Mercury by Jupiter.] 1. The fifth month of the year,

Originally March (in the primitive Roman and Jewish calendars) was the first month of the year. So September would be the 7th month from March.

July used to be Quintilis, the 5th month. Before it was renamed after Julius (he was born during Quintilis.

August used to be Sextilis (6th). The name was changed to August in honor of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, on account of his victories, and his entering on his first consulate in that month.

And so on out to 10.

randomjack

quote:

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Originally posted by Janarchy:
I know January is named after Janus, the two faced god of the new year. March is after Mars. September, October, November and December are all numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10. I don't actually know why though. That accounts for everything but February and April. :-)

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Saturday - Saturn's Day - Saturn (Roman mythology) god of agriculture and vegetation; counterpart of Greek Cronus. One of the elder and principal deities, the son of C[oe]lus and Terra (Heaven and Earth), and the father of Jupiter.

The seven days of the week were incorporated into the Roman Calendar by Constantine (AD 321) using the Hellenistic astrological system. Before this the days were calculated used ides (15th day of March, May, July, or October, 13th in others), calends (first day of the month) and nones (ninth day before the ides.)

So you got.

Dis Slis (Sun's Day)
Dis Lnae (Moon's Day)
Dis Martis (Mar's Day)
Dis Mercuri (Mercury's Day)
Dis Jovis (Jove's Day or Jupiter's Day)
Dis Veneris (Venus's Day)
Dis Saturn (Saturn's Day)

This Roman system was adopted throughout most of western europe. So the day names in Spanish, French and Italian are similiar to these original latin names. In germanic languages, like Old English, the names of 4 of the roman gods were transformed into their corresponding germanic equivalent.

So we get...
Sunnandaeg (Sunday)
Mnandaeg (Monday)
Twesdaeg (Tuesday, Tiu, like Mars was a god of war - Germanic his counterpart in Norse would be Tyr.)
Wdnesdaeg (Wednesday, Woden or Odin)
Thunresdaeg (Thursday Thunor in Old English or Thor in Old Norse - Like Jupiter lord of the sky)
Frgedaeg (Friday - Frigg, like Venus goddess of married love)
Saeternesdaeg (Saturday)

randomjack

quote:

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Originally posted by opus:
The Greeks named the days for the known celestial bodies. There are seven. I include the name, the planet, who it is named for, where applicable and a reference in Spanish because it parallels better. In English:

Sunday: The sun

Monday: Moon

Tuesday: Mars Norse parallel is from Tiw or Tir a norse god of battlefields. (Notice, in Spanish, Martes.

Wednesday: Mercury. This is a refrence one can guess to the swiftness of Odin, fastest horse and such. (Spanish is Miercoles.)

Thursday: Jupiter. Thor's day, another Thunder god. Spanish: Jueves for Jove (Zues)
Friday: venus. Norse Parallel: Freya or Frigga, sources differ. Viernes in Spanish

Saturday: Saturn. Jove's father. This is a mystery to me 4 norse, one Roman. (In Spanish it is Sabado for Sabbath.)

---

Neil lists the meanings for the days in the Kindly Ones. I'm not sure how accurate they are, though.

The Floyd

[This message has been edited by The Lord of Nothings (edited 07-17-2001).]

Weird that in German now Wednesday's Mittwoch (midweek) or something like that.

(this may be a double post as I clicked and nothing happened).