Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site wucec2.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!mgnetp!we53!busch!wucs!wucec2!sjs4310
From: sjs4310@wucec2.UUCP (Steven Jeffrey Sittser)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.origins
Subject: Re: Days of the week, Gods
Message-ID: <1258@wucec2.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Dec-85 04:33:45 EST
Article-I.D.: wucec2.1258
Posted: Thu Dec 12 04:33:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Dec-85 08:00:48 EST
References: <174@watmath.UUCP> <262@ho95e.UUCP> <674@spar.UUCP> <1328@jhunix.UUCP> <2487@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Reply-To: sjs4310@wucec2.UUCP (Steven Jeffrey Sittser)
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis
Lines: 17
Keywords: Days, Gods, Calendar
Xref: watmath net.nlang:3907 net.origins:2716

In article <2487@sdcrdcf.UUCP> barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) writes:
>I've read that the modern assessment of Odin as unchallenged Chief God of the
>Norse is ...umm...dubious, partly due to the fact that Odin was considered
>the patron of the poets who wrote the Eddas (and also due to the fact that
>it's unlucky to offend a death god).  Certainly worship of Thor was very
>popular, and it was Thor -- not Odin -- who showed up in the names people
>gave their children.

I believe Odin was pretty certainly the leader of the gods, but Thor
was perhaps more popularly worshiped.  Odin was mainly a god of warriors,
and the souls of those killed in battle went to him.  Thor was the god
of the common folk, and he took the souls of those unlucky enough to
die in some mundane, non-violent manner.  Thor was also closely associated
with the harvest (along with Frey), and thus in some sense more significant
than Odin in the day-to-day life of the common farmer.

						-SJS