My husband and I have been watching the History Channel’s series Vikings. It’s a really good show that is about a Viking family and Viking life in general. My husband and I have really gotten invested in this show, and I keep finding myself looking up different aspects of Norse culture. One of the things I can upon in my internet searches, is that our modern word for Thursday come’s from the Norse god Thor.
First of all it’s a misconception that the people themselves were called vikings. The term viking meant “pirate raid,” according to Google. The people were called Nose or Nordic. The Norse people went “viking.” The Norse people were polytheistic; meaning they had many gods. The mythology says that Odin the “all father” had many sons; most famously Thor; the god of thunder. You may know Thor from the Marvel series. Chris Hemsworth is what comes to my mind when I think of Thor. Though, I’m not sure that’s a completely accurate depiction of Thor. According to the “google machine” says Thor has red hair and a red beard, but he is depicted as a very muscular man. The images reminds me of wrestling actions figures from the 90s.
From what I gather in my research, it seems that it was popularly accepted that the 4th day of the week would be named after Thor, Thunder, or Jupiter (the Roman god of thunder.) All of these names have just evolved into Thursday. I’m not very well versed in linguistics or etymology, so I don’t have a clear handle on how exactly the change in spellings and pronunciation happened; but it’s a cool thing to know. It might come in handy at trivia night. Currently every time I think of Thursday, I think of Thor.
Stay safe, stay rad, and wash your DANG hands!
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