Wick (Double Diamonds): Week 5 – 1 June

The first of June, and the year is nearly half over! As we learned in school, the names of the months come from the Latin – June was named after Juno, Roman goddess of marriage, fertility, and many other roles. The names of the days of the week also had Roman origins, but indirectly. The Roman days were named after celestial bodies: the sun, the moon, and the five visible planets (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn). This convention goes back to the Babylonians, and occurs in many languages. When the Anglo-Saxons named their days, they used the same convention, but changed the gods involved to their own gods. So Saturday, Sunday and Monday are still named after Saturn, the sun and the moon, but Tuesday is from Tiw, god of war (Mars), Wednesday from Woden (Mercury), Thursday from Donar (Jupiter), Friday from Frigg (Venus). View at the end of the path Interestingly, in Denmark Saturday is ‘lørdag’, which comes from an old Norse word meaning ‘bath day’ or ‘washing day’. This…