Why is Easter Friday a ‘good’ Friday? The seven days of the week are named for a deity. Saturday for Saturn, Sunday, the sun. Monday, the moon, Tuesday, the Norse god Twia, Wednesday, the Norse god Woden, Thursday, the Norse god Thor, Friday, the Norse goddess Freja.
Friday is the only day of the week named for a goddess. This was a problem for the early Christian missionaries. Christianity was a patriarchal religion.
The Romans’ belief of conception was that the female was only a biological incubator for the male’s implanted seed. The Pagans believed that the male’s role in conception was that the female carried the dormant child and the male triggered it to develop. So it didn’t really matter who was the sire; the child was solely of the mother’s flesh and blood. The Pagans were a matrilineal society.
Freja was the goddess of love and beauty. Her animal companion was the cat. She was also a war goddess and had first pick of which slain warriors could be taken to heaven (Valhalla). Freja and her symbols were anathema to the Christians. The number 13 was the number of moon phases (plus one day) in the pagan year and was also connected to the female’s menstrual cycle. So Friday, the cat and the number 13 were to be reviled by Christians. Friday became a sinister day.
There was only one hitch in this concept of ‘Fear of Friday’ – Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Oh well, easily fixed. The Christian Church proclaimed that Easter Friday could be the one Friday of the year that could be a ‘Good Friday’.
Peggy Balfour, Mullumbimby
