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Page:Colson - The Week (1926, IA weekessayonorigi0000fhco).djvu/122

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precarious, and I put them forward rather as theses for consideration than as settled conclusions.

The history of the week-names among the Teutonic nations presents a more important and perplexing problem. We see that the first day is named as in the planetary week from the Sun. The Teuton like the Briton does not accept the Christian alternative of the Lord's day, but unlike the Briton he translates the word sol into its Teutonic equivalent. The second day is as elsewhere called after the Moon, and here too the word 'luna' has been translated, not taken over, as it stands, as in Welsh. The third in its various forms can be traced back to a Teutonic deity, whom we may presume and indeed know to have been held as an equivalent of Mars. 'The fourth in German is merely 'mid-week,' but in English, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages evidently retains the name of Woden or Odin, whom we have reason to think the Romans who were interested in Teutonic mythology identified with their own Mercury. The fifth bears the names of Thunor or Thor, a reasonable equivalent for Jupiter, and the goddess Frigg, who everywhere gives her name to the sixth, is an equally natural representation of Venus. The seventh has become in German Samstag, presumably a corruption of Sabbatum, but in English and Dutch it presents unmistakably Saturn's day, and in this case alone is the name