In Old English Wednesday was “Wōdnesdæg”, but yeah. Woden is the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin. Also Friday was “Frīġedæġ”. It’s not actually clear from the record if Fríge and Freyja are the same goddess or not, but they’re so similar that it’s a matter of some debate among scholars. The Norse pantheon apparently had no equivalent for Saturn, so Saturday kept the Roman name.
The weekdays were named for the seven “naked-eye” planets known to Hellenistic astrology. (The Sun and Moon counted as planets in that system.) The seven planetary gods were said to watch over the Earth in hourly shifts in order of (geocentric) distance: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Because a 24-hour day is 3 in arithmetic modulo 7, a different god opened each day of the week, and so the day was named for its opening god. Counting by 24′s (or 3′s) in this cycle ordered by distance gives us the familiar order of days of the week.
Note also Odin was “Woden” in Old English
In Old English Wednesday was “Wōdnesdæg”, but yeah. Woden is the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin. Also Friday was “Frīġedæġ”. It’s not actually clear from the record if Fríge and Freyja are the same goddess or not, but they’re so similar that it’s a matter of some debate among scholars. The Norse pantheon apparently had no equivalent for Saturn, so Saturday kept the Roman name.
The weekdays were named for the seven “naked-eye” planets known to Hellenistic astrology. (The Sun and Moon counted as planets in that system.) The seven planetary gods were said to watch over the Earth in hourly shifts in order of (geocentric) distance: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Because a 24-hour day is 3 in arithmetic modulo 7, a different god opened each day of the week, and so the day was named for its opening god. Counting by 24′s (or 3′s) in this cycle ordered by distance gives us the familiar order of days of the week.