~ 114 ~
I have already given my reasons for thinking the contrary. I can only suppose that one or more of the days preserved some civil or religious significance during this interval. But what this was we can only guess. One hint only I have found. Grimm notes that some special observance continued to be paid for centuries in Central Europe to Thursday[1]. This can hardly be a Christian growth, as we might have thought in the case of Sunday or Friday, and it looks like an indication that the Teutonic world, having taken the week-day names from their neighbours and having identified first the planet of Jupiter with the god Jupiter and then the latter with their own thunder-god, came to believe that he needed propitiation once in seven days. This in itself was bound to preserve the week-cycle, even if no other observance attached itself to the other six. But in all this section it must be remembered that I am speaking without the special knowledge that can lend authority to conjecture[2]. It would obviously be impossible to conclude my investigation of the planetary week without some mention of at any rate the Teutonic adoption of it. But I can do little more than state a case in
- ↑ Teutonic Mythology (Eng. trans.), I, p. 191. The evidence after the eighth century or so does not seem very strong, and I should add that Professor Chadwick considers the suggestion somewhat fanciful.
- ↑ Though I am glad to say that so high an authority as Professor Chadwick has read the pages on the Teutonic week and does not raise any objection, except that just mentioned.
