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The Probert Encyclopaedia of General Information

WEEK

The week is the period of seven days now universally adopted. It is of Hebrew or Chaldean origin and is generally regarded as a memorial of the creation of the world according to the Mosaic account. Dion Cassius attributes the invention of the week to the Egyptians. The Ptolemaic arrangement of the heavenly bodies, according to their distances from the earth, is Saturn (the most distant), Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon; and it was a principle of the ancient astrology that these bodies presided in this succession over the hours of the day. If the first hour be assigned to Saturn, the twenty-fifth or first hour of the next day, will fall to the sun; the forty-ninth, or first hour of the second day will fall to the moon and so on. From the names of the planets have been formed the modern names - Saturday (Saturn), Sunday (Sun), Monday (Moon), Tuesday (Tiu, the Saxon equivalent of Mars), Wednesday (Woden the Norse equivalent of Mercury), Thursday (Thor the Norse equivalent of Jupiter) and Friday (Frygga the Norse equivalent of Venus).
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