This past weekend, I had someone send me this jpeg making fun of it, and another send it to me asking if it was accurate.
1. The Romans named the day for Saturn, (the Planet and the Deity, like Jupiter is the Roman "Zeus" so to speak...) PS- Like the Germanic tribes, the Romans did not originally have a seven day week. When Rome first accepted a week, it was an 8-day week. Even the Greek New Testament, written in the first century, does not have the word "week." Passages on the resurrection (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1, Luke 24:1) state "One day from the sabbath" and not "first day of the week." Why? Because these peoples did not yet have a week in their language! "First day of the week" is a modern English translation of "one day from the Sabbath" as the Greek in these passages is clear! Take a look at this screen shot of the Greek New Testament. Notice the word "sabbaton" (highlighted in yellow) occurs twice in the below passage, and once it is translated as "sabbath" and the second time it is translated as "week." What this passage literally says is "After the Sabbaths at dawn on one (day) from the sabbaths"... During passover, there are multiple sabbaths, see Leviticus 23, where the first and seventh days of the feast of un-leavened bread are sabbaths, and often you have a third sabbath, i.e. the one that occurs on the seventh day every week! POINT: Even the Greeks/Romans in the first century did not yet have a seven day week, and their language proves it! And for all you who want to attack me here, please remember I have a master degree in Hebrew and Greek, and did my graduate school in both Israel and the states. PS- Just to be clear, Sabbaton or "Sabbath" is also a foreign word to Greeks and Romans, it comes from the Hebrew word "Shabbat" meaning "Sabbath", a semitic day of rest, sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. And yes, the biblical sundown begins a day, just like with the Germanic tribes: Genesis is clear: "It was evening and morning, day one." Biblical and Germanic days begin at sundown.
2. We only have three historically attested Old Saxon deities in a baptismal vow found in Old Saxon lands dated to the year 795 CE/AD: Thunar (Thor), Uuoden (Odin), and Sahsnoth (Saxnote). Loki is not attested to outside of Scandianvia, AT ALL... Nonetheless, these are the only three attested Old Saxon deities in the historical sources, but I think we all can agree that the Saxons had more deities than these three. This being said, these are the "big three" as these are the three the christians forced the Saxons to renounce in their forced conversions. Considering that it is possible the Old Saxon Heliand gives a reference to Fri (Norse Frigg), the "Mt Rushmore" of Saxon Deities (the "big four") would include Uuoden's wife. Considering the word "sibbia" is an Old Saxon word that means "siblings" and "spouses of siblings", (Norse equivalent is "Sif" for Thor's wife), I think it is safe to add Sib, Thunar's wife in our list of confirmed Saxon deities. The word "sibbia" and "Fri" (modern German is "frau") are constant words all over the Old Saxon Poems, I think this is the extent of the provable "Saxonhof." 3. "Satar" or "Sater" is not an Old Saxon Word. Francis Palgrave believes that Sater is a Slavic deity. (But can we even prove Sater was a deity???) Palgrave, Francis, History of the Anglo-Saxons (1876), William Tegg & Co., London p.43. While I do not have a PhD in linguistics, I have read Old Saxon daily for over 15 years, and I can read it as well as English, or pretty close. "Sater" doesn't even sound Old Saxon. (PS- "Satar" is a Hebrew verb that means "to hide.") However, in fairness, "ar" is an ending for Donar and Thunar, etc. But "sat" is a past tense form of the Old Saxon verb "sittian" meaning "to sit." 4. A folktale/myth of a one all-powerful God who created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, is not found in any Germanic folklore, and is clearly an import to the Germanic tribes that came with Christianization. The Old Saxon Heliand, and Scandinavian folklore show "days of the moon" in Heathen times. Our modern English word "month" comes from the word "moon" and means "a sequence of moons." In languages like Old Saxon (and Old English as well), when you add a "th" to a word, it means that it is in a sequence. Add a "th" to the word "seven" and you get "seventh." Add "th" to the word "moon" and you have the word "month," i.e. a lunar cycle, which happens over and over, sequentially. Christianity brought a Romanized world-view (and a Semitic world view as well) to the Germanic tribes. A Roman world view is a foreign world-view in Heathen Old Saxony. A solar calendar doesn't have cycles of the moon, but fixed day periods of time that ignore the moon completely. While September is a modern month for us (September means "seventh" month, though it is the 9th month today on the Roman calendar. Before you argue, remember that septuplets means a batch of seven). Here is an example from the Old Saxon Heliand showing a Saxon Heathen concept of time (from the Old Saxon Heliand Poem, verses 3642b-3633):
5. The jpeg contradicts itself, it states: "The Old English name "Saeter-daeg" from which the word Saturday comes, seems to be a translation of a Latin name." It does? Then is Sater a Latin deity, i.e. Saturn!
6. The jpeg says: "There are some who think that Saeter-daeg means "the day of Saetere" another name for Loki." I assume they are linking "Saetere" with the modern word "satire" and therefore, claiming it must be Loki. While I have tremendous respect for Jakob Grimm, he is writing over 1,000 years since Charlemagne and the Christian Franks destroyed Saxon Heathenry. A lot of 19th century scholastic ideas still persist today, but a lot are tossed aside, disproven. Let me give an example from Christian scholasticism. German scholars in the 19th century theorized (probably correctly I should add) that Mark was the original Gospel, and the authors of Matthew and Luke's gospels copied from Mark, because all three synoptic Gospels have word for word similarities in huge sections, and Mark is clearly the oldest. However, in the 20th century, scholars correctly moved to a two source view, that Mark and another document (now lost) had to have been the sources for Matthew and Luke. Why? Mark is the shortest gospel. Mark doesn't have a birth narative of Christ, nor a post resurrection narrative. Christians clearly wanted this to be added to the Christian myth, so both were added. However, there are many passages, not in Mark, that are word for word the same in Matthew and Luke, therefore, there must be another source. Some of Grimm's theories still stand as very plausible today, and others, scholars toss aside.
7. The jpeg claims that Laugardagr may have originally been "Loki's Day." This is a stretch, but at least the jpeg says "may have." I do not mean to start a Loki debate here. But let's be blunt: We have over 1,000 location names named after Thor and Odin and Frigg, etc, and ZERO places named after Loki. I am well aware that Loki occupies a place in Eddaic lore. This being said, in Hakon the Good chapters 14-16, we have Njord cups, and Odin cups, etc during Sumble, but not a Loki cup. We do not see source evidence for Loki veneration, and Loki in the end (Ragnarok) choses to fight against the Gods, against all the Aesir. "Asatru" is a word that does mean "true to the Aesir" and one cannot argue Loki is true to the Aesir. This is why there are other invented words like "Rökkatru." You cannot be true to both Loki and the Aesir.
PS-Art is not evidence for veneration. There may be a runestone with Loki on it (it is debated, but I do believe it is Loki.) But nonetheless, Christian art has demons and angels, and neither were venerated by Christians.
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