Saturday, September 18, 2010

Oh Sweet SATURDAYS...



Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exodus 20:8

Ever wondered WHO created the NAMES of the days of the week.  God created ALL things and he spoke of the Sabbath, but the actually names Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.....hummmmm.  


Here's a little article I found on Google....

....but what about those days? Talk about weird words ... and wonderful theories. Here's a fascinating little conversation filler for you:

"The Latin names of the Planets were simple translations of the Greek names, which in turn were translations of the Babylonian names, which go back to the Sumerians.
"The Germanic version of the Latin day names has some correspondences and some differences. In English, the 1st, 2nd, and 7th days are still named after the Sun, Moon, and Saturn, respectively. The 6th day, Friday, looks like the name (Fria or Freya) of a Germanic love goddess, which would correspond to Venus (fri-, as in "friend," is a cognate of philein, "to love," in Greek), though the day is also said to be named after the goddess Frigg, who is also a goddess of love, and of the hearth (which would be Vesta rather than Venus in Rome). The 5th day, Thursday, named after Jupiter, who is a thunder god in Latin, is named after a Germanic thunder god, well known as "Thor" in Norse mythology. Tuesday is named after Tiw, a god of law, but also said to be a god of war, which would match up to Mars. Wednesday is named after the king of the gods, who was Wotan in ancient German and Odin in Norse mythology. This has no obvious correspondence to Mercury, though Odin as a god of wisdom might suggest the role of Mercury in association with learning, and in Late Antiquity with esoteric knowledge.


"The curious thing about the Latin names, clearly using the planets, is that the ancient order of the planets, rising from the Earth to the Fixed Stars, can be read off by starting with Monday and jumping every other day for two weeks: Monday (Moon), Wednesday (Mercury), Friday (Venus), Sunday (Sun), Tuesday (Mars), Thursday (Jupiter), and Saturday (Saturn). One is left with the impression that the names were assigned in a kind of code, so that the Sun would come first in the week, but then the true order of the planets could be read off nevertheless. Saturn comes both at the end of the week and at the end of planets. The day that many people consider to the the 1st day of the week, Monday, is the first planet and does begin the sequence of planets. http://www.friesian.com/week.htm "
... Doo-doo, doo-doo ... (that's meant to be 'Twilight Zone' music) Spooky, eh? If you missed the origins of the week days, here they are again:


Monday - Monandaeg or Moonday. The moon was worshipped as the wife of the sun, among other things ("daeg" means day).


Tuesday - Tiwsday or Tiwesdaeg. Tyr, god of war


Wednesday - Wodensday or Wodnesdaeg. Norse god Odin, or Wodin. Tyr's father


Thursday - Thorsday or Thunresdaeg. Thor, Norse god of Thunder


Friday - Frigsday or Frigedaeg. Norse goddess Freya. Wife of Odin, mother of Thor. Named a day after her lest she be jealous and work evil upon them


Saturday - Seternesday or Saterdaeg. Norse god Seterne; also the Roman god Saturn who presided over the sowing of the seed. His festival was Saturnalia, December 17. Because of the wildness of the revels during the festival the name has come to mean a time of wild revelry and tumult.


Sunday - Sunnandaeg, from "sunnan" meaning sun. It is regarded as a name surviving from ancient sun worship. As the Resurrection of Christ occurred on the first day of the week the early Christians began to assemble for worship on that day instead of on the Jewish Sabbath, which is Saturday.

I actually appreciate Saturdays VERY MUCH ! I cherish the Lord's Day but those Saturdays that have nothing on the calendar are awesome! Today I think is one of those. The sun is shining and the temperatures are mild. There is a slight chance of rain later but I love the rains. So of course on the agenda is laundry/dishes/cleaning/vacuming/dusting...all those musts. Grocery shopped last night!  But then there is also that list that I make all week long of  " TO DO" s.  I'm a list person and although it never ends, it does feel good to get some things crossed off. I've had my coffee and a cinnamon roll this morning and now it's time to get cracking. My list is calling me!


4 comments:

PBKISSES said...

OK, Here I go showing my age again, but I was reminded of a couple old '80's songs reading this post: "Manic Monday" and "Girl of 100 lists". Don't really remember much about the songs, just the titles! Silly Huh?
We are taking it easy this Sat. Went to the reenactment in the park, then to Family Center.
(I got the cutest apple bushel basket for $4.00!) R-Dub has football at 1:00. Then youth group for Naynie at 5:30(?????). I will attempt the grocery store at that time - yuck (hate shopping on Saturday) you were so smart to get it done last night! We have neighborhood picninc tomorrow afternoon so I need a good sidedish idea(???)

I admire you on the cleaning front, don't see it happenin' here today! You go girl!

GardenOfDaisies said...

It was fun learning about all the days of the week. I am a list girl too, partly because I would never be able to remember it all if I didn't write it down! LOL! My house would normally have been cleaned today, but son is home from college for the weekend, and we went to a big family gathering.. a send off for my nephew who is going into the Marines. He leaves tomorrow. So cleaning got put on the backburner. I do still need to get son's laundry done before he leaves to go back to school though.

Happy@Home said...

Until now I don't think I'd given much thought to how the days of the week got their names. Very interesting information you have provided.
As I read through your to-do list, it sounded like the exact things I was doing yesterday. We had hubby's family over to celebrate his b-day.
Hope your Sunday is a pleasant one.

GardenOfDaisies said...

LOL! I have never heard the bluebird up the nose song! I read someplace that bluebirds are the symbol of happiness, cheerfulness, hope and all that is good. And they are sometimes given as gifts when you want to bring some cheer into someones life. So maybe that is what your friend was trying to do. Yes, it always tugs on the heartstrings when they head back to college after being home for a few days. But I know how much my kids are loving the whole "college experience", and so I am happy for them too.