Hi all you Hivers,

I've decided to POWER UP on Wednesdays. And I have a good reason for this...

Thanks to Kristijan Arsov for sharing this work on Unsplash.

Wednesday

It must have easily been 35 or 36 years ago and I would have been 13 or 14 sat in English class at high school when I found myself staring at the word WEDNESDAY that was written at the top of the page along with the date. it had always been a weird word and i had tuned out the teacher as I was lost in my own thoughts. This often happened in this class as the teacher was incredibly boring.

@biggypauls doing his best ODIN impersonation

Without really thinking i raised my hand and the teacher stopped and said "yes, what is it boy". i said " Sir, why is Wednesday called Wednesday?" He looked pretty pissed off as it obviously had nothing to do with what he was talking about and said "What has that got to do with anything?" to which I replied" Sir this is English class and it is Wednesday, the word is spelt weirdly and this as far as I know has never been explained to us". He was now more angry and said " you're off topic". Being a cheeky fucker I quickly said" it's ok to say you don't know Sir if you don't know" Laughter from the class. I was quite good at this, keeping my cool and making the teachers lose theirs."Stay on topic boy you're wasting my time". " So you don't know Sir?". Luckily the bell went we filed out I was called back and he was telling me not to distract the class in future. I asked him again and he angrily dismissed me telling me to go to my next class. I was thinking how can he not know he's a bloody English teacher.

I decided at the weekend to find out for myself. I still to this day have no idea why i felt compelled to do so. There was a tiny library around the corner from the house we lived in and I'd mostly only ran into it to escape groups of kids chasing me with the intention of kicking the shit out of me so when I walked in all calmly and not in a sweaty panic the library staff looked a little bemused. Even more so when I approached them and asked where the reference books were that would tell me why days were named as they were etc. A look of genuine surprise from them now. The little ruffian really has some research to do.

1848- Wilhelm Kaulbach depicts Freya, Odin and Thor. Friday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I spent a fascinating day in the library finding out not only about the days of the week but months of the year also and all the strange combinations of Norse mythology and Roman Emperors all really interesting stuff.

Ludwig Pietch 1865- Illustration of odin

The very next Wednesday I was sat yet again in English class and waiting for the opportune moment as it were. i waited til i thought it was almost perfect with the majority of the class almost in a coma as the teacher droned on and my hand went up. "what now boy?" he bellowed. "Odins day Sir." I said. "What are you talking about boy?". "Today Sir. It's Odins Day named after the Norse God Odin , The All Father. Became known in Olde English as Woden and then Wodens day and now we know it as Wednesday". Thought you might want to know in case someone asks you in the future"
"GET OUT OF MY CLASS BOY" came his predictable response followed by the timely noise of the bell indicating we would all be leaving now. Gladly I thought and victory was mine. I like to think Odin himself was chuckling about it looking down from Valhalla.

So in honour of the All Father ODIN lets POWER UP on Wednesday and show a little respect 👊