Do you ever wonder where these names come from? Why Friday? What does Wednesday mean? Why are the days named the way they are? We aren’t going to do a deep dive, it is Friday after all…. Friday is “The day of Frigg” it was in our distant past a celebration of the goddess frigg. That’s right, another pagan reference we still use today in modern society. There are of course many interpretations of how “Friday” came about, what connotations were used when, and at what time exactly did these meld into an accepted commonality. I can’t unwrap that here, what I can say is immediately after the death of Christ the Roman’s began expanding deeply into the European continent.
They conquered and stayed and what happened over time is the peoples they governed adopted some of their language, the romans adopted some of theirs. Fast forward to the expansion of Christianity which at the time the western world’s universal language was Latin. Again, they adopted some regional words/dialects, the regions adopted some Latin. At some point, let’s say the renaissance somethings began to become universally accepted. Units of Measure, accepted terms of trade, months on the calendar and days. Of course there are pockets of exceptions, not every town in every country in 1500 called Friday, Friday but I think you get the point.
So who is Frigg? She is the highest ranking goddess of the Aesir and wife to Odin, in Norse Mythology. Ya she is a big deal. She is forever tied to Freya and when we study Norse mythology we find in many examples the two are nearly identical in application but separate in name. It’s almost as if there are two deities doing performing the same role, and to a large extend they are. This is explained in the simplest terms of the “tiers” of gods you had in Norse Mythology. There are Aesir and Vanir, so we have duplication as Freya is both, Frigg is Aesir (high god only).
Frigg is a Volva and that means she is a practioner of Seidr which is the Norse magic/power of discerning and affecting fate. Fate, in Norse mythology is arguably the most powerful concept which is the overarching theme of the entire practice, much like faith is to a Christian. Why Frigg is associated with Friday or more accurately Friday with her (and Freyja) is the celebrations of Frigg happened to fall on the 5th day of the Christian calendar at the time of observation. Viking concepts of time weren’t necessarily broken out into days, I know that’s hard for us to imagine now as time is honed down to the second.
Remember in parts of Scandinavia there are days when the sun does not set, and other days where the sun does not come up. Their concept of time was different than others. Regardless we now have Friday as a result “Thank god it’s Friday” or “I can’t wait for Friday” we still celebrate Friday in our culture as a prelude to the weekend. Funny how our Norse ancestors still reach forward in time and gift us with these small, but meaningful rituals.
Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.