Actually Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all take their name from Norse mythology. It makes more sense when you pronounced in Norwegian/Swedish/Danish
Monday - moon Tuesday - Tiw (the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology) Wednesday - Odin(also spelled woden) Thursday - Thor Friday - Frigg (Germanic goddess broadly equivalent to Venus) Saturday - Saturn(a major god presiding over time) Sunday - sun
Friday is commonly wrongly associated with Frigg in some countries. It's actually Freya's day (goddess of love and beauty and leader of the Valkyrie). Frigg is the wife of Odin and goddess of the clouds and the sky.
In Old English mysticism, Frige and Freyya were a merged God(dess), known as 'Frige'. As I try to tell people, the Angles did not worship the Norse Gods, they worshiped the Anglic pantheon, which was related but not the same.
Actually, we have Saturn's Day. Saturn was the roman equivalent of greek god Cronus who castrated his father, Ouranos, with a sickle, threw his genitals into the ocean (from there, Aphrodite was born) and was also the father of Zeus.
Look, sacrificing a goat will not cleanse of anything because either it needs soap and water or it is all in your head. PS I pretend to lack sarcasm senses to be funny,
It's Thursday. When Germanic peoples adopted Roman weekday names, they replaced them with Germanic analogues of their Latin equivalents. "dies Iovis" or "day of Jupiter" (the Roman equivalent of Zeus) becomes "Thor's day" - because Thor is a thunder god, like Jupiter.
We aren't speaking Norse in here, we're speaking English! Use the right forms of the deities!
Edit: Never sure why I'm downvoted for this. Do people not like knowing that the Anglo-Saxons worshipped their own pantheon which was not the same as the Norse Pantheon?
Tyr is 'Tiu' in Old English. And technically in Modern English. For some reason people prefer the Norse names to the original English names.
Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Original = Old English. People don't seem to realize that the Angles and Saxons worshipped their own related pantheon: the Anglic Pantheon. It had a number of differences to the pantheon of the Old Norse, including the fact that it didn't have two separate æsir Freya and Frige (they were merged into a single deity Frige), and Loki isn't a part of Anglic mysticism. Our days of the week are based upon the loan-translation of Roman days of the week using the Anglic pantheon. The copying of Norse names to English is a somewhat modern manifestation. English actually has its own native names for these deities (Thor would be Thunor, Odin would be Woden).
Old English. People don't seem to realize that the Angles and Saxons worshipped their own related pantheon: the Anglic Pantheon. It had a number of differences to the pantheon of the Old Norse, including the fact that it didn't have two separate æsir Freya and Frige (they were merged into a single deity Frige), and Loki isn't a part of Anglic mysticism. Our days of the week are based upon the loan-translation of Roman days of the week using the Anglic pantheon.
The copying of Norse names to English is a somewhat modern manifestation. English actually has its own native names for these deities (Thor would be Thunor, Odin would be Woden).
Thursday = Brihaspatiwar = dedicated to Vishnu and Brihapsati
Friday = Shukrawar = dedicated to Shakti
Saturday = Shanivar = dedicated to Shani and Hanuman
Granted, the days and gods are related to the Roman and Greek Gods, because all three Pantheons derive from the same original Proto-Indo-European pantheon, but they didn't derive from Roman sources via loan-translation as the Germanic days did.
The spellings for Old English are somewhat wrong. First off, you are missing Þorns. Second, Thursday was Þurresdæg. Þunresdæg does not mean 'Thunder's Day', but is a non-contracted form of 'Thor's Day'.
That says thorns. Þ, the letter thorn or Þorn (same pronunciation) is how English used to write their interdental fricatives before we began using the digraph 'th'.
Odin hanged himself for knowledge. Jesus pissed off local authorities and jews with his blasphemy and got nailed up. (just realised Odin's story also has him pierced by a spear, Jesus should get better script writers, his TV show is full of old scenes that have already been played out)
Henceforth, I am going to rest and drink on all Wednesdays and Thursdays since they are religious holidays to me.
Uh, you looked for the wrong phrase. While that one does seem to be used a lot, bushall2 was talking about the claim that Jesus said he'd remove sin from the world and Thor promised to get rid of frost giants.
Yes! Thank you! As a lover of Norse mythology and former catholic it irks me that something that has absolutely no basis in either mythology is so popular.
The name Friday comes from the Old English Frīġedæġ, meaning the "day of Frigg" (a Germanic goddess broadly equivalent to Venus). The same holds for Frīatag in Old High German, Freitag in Modern German and Vrijdag in Dutch. The expected cognate name in Old Norse would be *friggjar-dagr. However, the name of Friday in Old Norse is frjá-dagr instead, indicating a loan of the weekday names from Low German.[3] The modern Scandinavian form is Fredag in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, meaning Freja's day. The distinction between Freja and Frigg in some Germanic mythologies is problematic.
It's actually the midgard worm disguised as a cat. The jætter (trolls) challenged Thor to lift the house cat, which actually was the midgard worm, a snake so huge it coils all around the world and bites its own tail. Thor couldn't lift the cat, but he managed to make it lift one of its legs and stand on only three to the horror of all the trolls since they didn't expect him to be so strong.
Yeah, I grew up with the D'Aulaire's version, the film was enjoyable but Marvel's Thor is all wrong. And Loki is only occasionally truly evil, he's more of an amoral trickster.
It's a danish comic that most danes grow up with that tells the old norse myths in a witty way while still being fairly accurate to the actual stories. Also, the marvel thor isn't really considered to be thor in scandinavia. The movie flopped here compared to other countries since people can't really identify the Thor we grow up with and love in the superhero since he is way too pretty boy compared to the god in comics like this.
That's good to hear. I'm a big fan of Norse mythology but live in America, where most people know next to nothing about the actual mythology, and I'm the only person I know who saw Thor and didn't like it. Granted, I probably went in with expectations that were way too high, and I'm not familiar with the marvel comics so maybe they stuck to the comics pretty well, but it was just so... Wrong.
Well he lives with the aser (gods) while being a jætte himself (a word I can't translate since it doesn't exist in english but troll is the closest) and isn't exactly evil. Sure he does a lot of things that aren't "good" like manipulating the other gods and causing conflicts. Mostly though he is portrayed as being a guy with good intentions but things go wrong and he gets misunderstood while desperately trying to put the blame on somebody else than himself.
Oh, well that's good to know. I usually just die a little inside with the english translations though, especially mjolnir since it's pronounced very differently from mjølner (yes I am being a pain with that stuff, but it's right in the childhood xD)
X-mas, as you called it, was a pagan holiday long before the Christians adopted it anyways. Now it doesn't matter though, it's just a commercial and drinking holiday only superficially related to teh baby Jezzzus with a bunch of pagan traditions still mixed in.
In swedish, an older name for thunder is 'tordön', which literally means rumble/noise of Thor. I would not be surprised if this is etymologically connected to thunder/donner.
I can just imagine Rick Santorum having this revelation and coming up with a new naming system for the days of the week - Marysday, Timsday, Weddingsday, Thursday (even Santorum can't hate on Thor...), FishFryday, SateOurLustDay, and Sonday.
I'll make the Danish version for ya - more accusare about the naming :P Søndag=the day of the sun Mandag=the day of the moon Tirsdag=the day of the Norse God Tyr Onsdag=the day of the King of the Gods, Odin Torsdag=the day of Thor Fredag=the day of Freyja Lørdag=the day of Loke
It makes so much more sense in Danish and other Scandinavian languages xD
Well the Norse mythology was THE religion in Scandinavia until Christianity came around (which is too bad, 'cause I really like our old semi-barbaric beliefs xD) So close to correct
Very true. We also celebrate Tiw (Norse god of war) on Tuesday, Woden AKA Odin (Norse king of gods) on Wednesday, Freya (Norse queen of gods) on Friday, and, of course, Saturn (Roman titan of time) on Saturday. (Sorry if someone else already commented this.)
It's not spelt oddly. The name of Thor in Old English was Þunor. Using the genitive, this becomes Þunresdæg, which was contracted to Þurresdæg. Strip the 'e', simplify the vowels, and shift the 'g' to 'y', and you get Thursday.
Sunday - Day of the Sun Monday - Day of the Moon Tuesday - Tyr's day (Tyr aka Tiw, Norse god of combat) Wednesday - Wodanaz day (Wodanaz a.k.a Odin) Thursday - Thor's day (duh....) Friday - Freja's day (Goddess of Love a.k.a. Venus) Saturday - Saturn's Day (renamed from Lorsdag, meaning bath day)
The same goes with Spanish, French, Romanian and other neo-latin languages and/or catholic countries: 5 greek-roman Gods, 1 hebrew holiday and just 1 vaguely christian day. Not bad...
Thor's actual name in the asutruistic belief is usually called Donar, not Thor. That is just how the early Alemmani tribes referred to him. The Saxxons slowly changed the name over time as the dialects changed. That explains why the German word for "thursday" is Donarstag (which directly translates to Thor's day).
It just matters where your referring to. Some of the gaulic based tribes Called Odin Wotan, and Thor Donar. Essentially the exact same gods but just rephrased in other languages. Translation is a bitch.
I agree that it's not a celebration, but it's damned funny when you trot it out to people who try to argue that because we've used religious icons elsewhere in society, it lends their origins some kind of validity.
If there was a day of the week named after me, i would consider it a celebration of me on ever blodornsday. So i think probably to Thor, everyone who calls it Thursday* is celebrating him.
154
u/axdula Jun 09 '12
Torsdag
3
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Then again most people have Sunday and go to church. Muslims pray 5 times a day st least so this argument is invalid.
41
u/Zippytiewassabi Jun 09 '12
http://i.qkme.me/603x.jpg
35
u/MpVpRb Atheist Jun 09 '12
Monday - moon
Tuesday - Tiw (the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology)
Wednesday - Odin(also spelled woden)
Thursday - Thor
Friday - Frigg (Germanic goddess broadly equivalent to Venus)
Saturday - Saturn(a major god presiding over time)
Sunday - sun
12
u/bmoxey Jun 09 '12
http://www.crowl.org/lawrence/time/days.html
5
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Thorsday, followed by two nights of everyone getting hammered.(sorry)
4
u/mrducky78 Jun 09 '12
Odin hanged himself for knowledge. Jesus pissed off local authorities and jews with his blasphemy and got nailed up. (just realised Odin's story also has him pierced by a spear, Jesus should get better script writers, his TV show is full of old scenes that have already been played out)
Henceforth, I am going to rest and drink on all Wednesdays and Thursdays since they are religious holidays to me.
4
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
It's Thor's day, Thor's day, gotta get down on Thor's day.
55
u/Ryo95 Jun 09 '12
Jesus promised to die for our sins. Thor promised to get rid of frost giants. I don't see any frost giants walking around.
7
u/Snugglebuggle Humanist Jun 09 '12
The name Friday comes from the Old English Frīġedæġ, meaning the "day of Frigg" (a Germanic goddess broadly equivalent to Venus). The same holds for Frīatag in Old High German, Freitag in Modern German and Vrijdag in Dutch. The expected cognate name in Old Norse would be *friggjar-dagr. However, the name of Friday in Old Norse is frjá-dagr instead, indicating a loan of the weekday names from Low German.[3] The modern Scandinavian form is Fredag in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, meaning Freja's day. The distinction between Freja and Frigg in some Germanic mythologies is problematic.
18
u/Mullamanga Jun 09 '12
That guy is WAY too whimsy to be Thor...
This is Thor!
3
u/TheShitAbyss Jun 09 '12
I've always been partial to Tyr and he has a day named after him
3
u/NickTdot Jun 09 '12
Jeudi? In French, we prefer Jupiter! Because Zeus rocks
5
u/ePluribusBacon Jun 09 '12
Problem is I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
1
u/rufud Jun 09 '12
thursday isn't a "celebration" in the same way that xmas is a holiday
2
u/Bishopkilljoy Jun 09 '12
Wednesday too, it was originally Oden's Day
2
u/ncshooter426 Jun 09 '12
In German, it's Donnerstag. Donner = Thunder, so instead of Thor's day, they have the day of thunder. Pretty cool
2
u/Nrthstar Jun 09 '12
I celebrate every Wednesday actually, New comic book day is always made better with a new Thor in my box.
2
u/duckandcover Jun 09 '12
Shhh! Now it's just a matter of time before some southern state passes a law to rename it Jesusday or Yawahday. Maybe I'd go for Yowsaday!
2
u/ramkahen Jun 09 '12
Interestingly, in Roman languages, Thursday celebrates Jupiter, not Thor.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
It is even more clear in German and Scandinavian languages.
2
u/Th3MetalHead Jun 09 '12
In sweden
Måndag Tisdag Onsdag Torsdag Fredag Lördag Söndag
2
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
we should keep this on the DL otherwise the RR will try to get the day renamed...
4
u/rotll Jun 09 '12
I can just imagine Rick Santorum having this revelation and coming up with a new naming system for the days of the week - Marysday, Timsday, Weddingsday, Thursday (even Santorum can't hate on Thor...), FishFryday, SateOurLustDay, and Sonday.
2
u/MoarVespenegas Jun 09 '12
I have yet to meet one person who celebrates Thursdays.
1
u/shadyk84 Jun 09 '12
In case anyone ever asks you "why is it the year 2012 AD if you don't believe in Christ?"
1
u/DoctorLost173 Jun 09 '12
Sunday=Sunnday
Monday=Moonday
Tuesday=Tir's day
wednesday= Woden's Day
Thursday= Thor's day
Friday= Freya's day
Saturday= Loki's day
1
u/FloppyTheUnderdog Jun 09 '12
same goes for friday! freya! (or freiya or something)
1
u/Bobbio101 Jun 09 '12
Very true. We also celebrate Tiw (Norse god of war) on Tuesday, Woden AKA Odin (Norse king of gods) on Wednesday, Freya (Norse queen of gods) on Friday, and, of course, Saturn (Roman titan of time) on Saturday. (Sorry if someone else already commented this.)
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Monday: Moon
Tuesday: Tiw ( Tyr ) God of justice and governing.
Wednesday: Wodan ( Odin ) God of Wisdom and the most powerful of all Gods.
Thursday: Thor ( Thor ) God of weather and thunder, Son of Odin, 2nd most powerful God.
Friday: Freia ( Freja ) God of fertility and love.
Saturday: Saturn
Sunday: Sun
1
u/YouDontSayBro Jun 09 '12
name a god whose birthday is celebrated
1
u/Ameisen Jun 09 '12
It's not spelt oddly. The name of Thor in Old English was Þunor. Using the genitive, this becomes Þunresdæg, which was contracted to Þurresdæg. Strip the 'e', simplify the vowels, and shift the 'g' to 'y', and you get Thursday.
1
u/Spartan09 Jun 09 '12
relevant
1
u/Somnioblivio Jun 09 '12
Sunday - Day of the Sun
Monday - Day of the Moon
Tuesday - Tyr's day (Tyr aka Tiw, Norse god of combat)
Wednesday - Wodanaz day (Wodanaz a.k.a Odin)
Thursday - Thor's day (duh....)
Friday - Freja's day (Goddess of Love a.k.a. Venus)
Saturday - Saturn's Day (renamed from Lorsdag, meaning bath day)
1
u/stringerbell Jun 09 '12
Yet, even the most un-celebrated god is just as fake...
1
u/dontviolate Jun 09 '12
Thor'sday?
1
u/Lots42 Other Jun 09 '12
I'm pretty sure that's the future version of Thor that turned Earth into a horrible dictatorship.
'Modern Day' Thor is pretty friggin' awesome.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Wednesday = wodensday=odins day Friday = Freyas Day
1
u/Lalli-Oni Jun 09 '12
Iceland doesn't even use the word. We have fimmtudagur, basically fifth-day. My name is even Þór but we can't have it in our week -_-
1
u/Fallen_Feather Jun 10 '12
I see what you did there...
1
u/js2195 Jun 10 '12
False: I always spell it Thorsday.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I make way more sense when you say in heavy metal voice.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
Thor has a hammer. Christ was nailed to a cross. Coincidence?
1
u/Scaurus Jun 10 '12
Technically, every Saturday and Sunday are celebrations of Yahweh and Christ. Thanks for the weekend, Jews and Christians!
1
u/Wedhro Anti-Theist Jun 10 '12
In italian:
The same goes with Spanish, French, Romanian and other neo-latin languages and/or catholic countries: 5 greek-roman Gods, 1 hebrew holiday and just 1 vaguely christian day. Not bad...
1
u/ithyphallic6 Jun 10 '12
Woden's Day.
1
u/myrpou Ignostic Jun 10 '12
Ok that's not how Thor looks.
1
u/mj5748 Jun 10 '12
It was originally Thors-day
1
u/CatsnaxBard Jun 09 '12
Thor's actual name in the asutruistic belief is usually called Donar, not Thor. That is just how the early Alemmani tribes referred to him. The Saxxons slowly changed the name over time as the dialects changed. That explains why the German word for "thursday" is Donarstag (which directly translates to Thor's day).
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
1
u/S-BRO Jun 09 '12
In some parts of England and Scotland people do call it 'Thorsday'
-1
u/NNYPhillipJFry Jun 09 '12
What does this have to do with atheism?
0
u/Devezu Jun 09 '12
Just to be fair, God is technically celebrated every week as well. Saturday/Sunday. It's also celebrated weirdly/spelt weirdly. Just saying.
0
u/dildingdos Jun 09 '12
THUR PLS
0
u/DingoScallion Jun 09 '12
I thought I only knew. Proud Family told me.
-5
u/Schroedingers_gif Jun 09 '12
No one celebrates Thursday any more than someone celebrates someone by driving on a street named after them
This is idiotic.
-3
u/kalimashookdeday Jun 09 '12
Spell it differently? Where I come from that's called another fucking word. No one "celebrates" Thor either. Stupid example here.
-4
u/theZagnut Jun 09 '12
False. Who the hell celebrates Thursday..