Day Names (was: Shadowmancer?)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, <pengolodh_sc at y...> wrote:

> 
> Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are from Norse.  Tuesday is 
> named for the Norse/Germanic god of war, Ty (Ti).  

Being the god of war is why Mars was chosen to parallel Tyr (as Randy
said, Tuesday = mardi). 

> Wednesday is named for the chief Norse/Germanic god, Odin (also 
> written Wotan).  

The Romans chose Mercury to parallel Odin (Wednesday = mercredi) on
the theory that they were both gods of the dead. Mercury was the
psychopomp, who led dead soul to the land of the dead, altho' us
moderns feel that aspect is minor compared to his roles as patron of
travel, commerce, news, lies, lawyers, etc. We think Hades/Pluto was
much more god of the dead than Hermes/Mercury.        

> Thursday is named for Thor, god of lightning and combat.  

Thursday = jeudi. (My friend used to call her mother "Thursday"
because her name was Judy.) Jeudi is named for Jove/Jupiter/Zeus. It
is his role as Thunderer that makes him parallel to Thor, altho' us
moderns would expect his role as King of the Gods to make him parallel
to Odin. 

> Friday is named for Frey, the god of fertility (his sister Freya
> was goddess of fertility).

Friday was named for FreyA (or for Frigga, wife of Odin, from whose
name comes the word 'frig'; there is some dispute), not Frey. Because
Friday = vendredi, named after Venus/Aphrodite, goddESS of beauty,
love, sex, prostitution, etc, so the parallel had also to be a female
deity.