Thursday's Trivia

As most people know, Thursday was named after the Germanic God - Thor. And no, before some smart-arse says he was a Norse God, Germanic covers all the Nordic lands - so there !!

Anyway, Thor was the God of THUNDER, and WAR and farming. Quite why he was the God of farming seems a bit of a mystery. I remember growing up in Wales that the 'young farmers' used to come down to the bright lights of the 'discotheque innit' every 2 weeks or so, and there was fighting indeed, but it wasn't really a war, more a pointless scuffle between mindless idiots.

I suppose being the God of farming might explain why his chariot was drawn by two goats - I mean only a farmer could come up with that idea. I remember a farmer friend of mine explaining how his father couldn't afford a guide dog so they gave him a guide rabbit instead.

"Had to take it back in the end though" he explained (in his very Welsh accent)
"Why was that?" I enquired, intrigued
"Cost too much to keep digging him out of the bloody holes"

Back to Thor though. He travelled around with a big hammer, called MJOLLNIR if you're interested, which he used to go around bonking people on the heads with. Apparently, his biggest enemies were the Frost Giants, all of whom he slayed by swinging his big 'un at them in a rather aggresive fashion.

Before he got to the last one though, some of the other Gods tried to help out the Frost Giant by fashioning a large clay giant called Mist Calf. Now personally, I would have assumed that becoming a God required some degree of intelligence. To me, clay versus hammer is only going to have one outcome but for some reason these Gods were too fucking stupid to figure it out. Unsurprisingly, when the clay giant (a huge version of Wallace, from Wallace and Gromit) appeared, Thor dutifully smashed the fuck out of it.

Thor would probably still be scooting around in his goat powered chariot now, were it not for his untrustworthy sidekick Loki. For Thor, his side kick was indeed bad Loki, and the cheeky little Fire God led Thor into a trap.

So, unfortunately, Thor got killed and the calendar was changed so that Thursday was named after him. It's probably a good thing really, as in the original Gregorian calendar, Thursday was initially named after Jupiter. Jupesday doesn't quite have the same ring to it really - especially when you consider what a Jupe is in French......

Well, that's my educational post done for another year ;-)