Remember last week I was talkin’ about Friday and Fire Day and how I associated the two together and wasn’t sure how it happened other than the similar prefixes? I was recently reminded that Tuesday in Japanese is Ka-Youbi, “fire day”, and as I spent a year over there that might explain some of why I assumed there was fire-related day in our calendar. (Incidentally, it’s also “fire day” in Korean.)

So today is Tuesday, March 26th. But in reality it’s Tiw’s Day, another Norse god.

Tiw is the Old English name of what was originally Tîwaz in Proto-Germanic, which I’d like to think is the language of my ancestors, though going back to 500BC makes everything difficult to be very certain of.

Tiw is the god of war and law, but like most ancient celestial beings, the associations get immediately murky as soon as you look into it. For instance, Tiw is also Tyr, who in certain regions subscribing to Norse mythology was a son of Odin. Though interestingly, Týr is also a generic word for “god” in ancient Norse, so there’s some belief that Tyr was a standalone supreme god until Odin became more popular, and Odin of course is now also considered the “god of war”.

The residues of those ancient times, whole civilizations that were around for hundreds and even thousands of years, comprised of people with lives not unlike ours, dudes and chicks with hopes and dreams and desires and problems and mysteries to ponder, are all gone now, mostly forgotten, save for the fact our genes carry the same code. I’m so happy that our days of the week are from that ancient, kickass time, and not like, “Saint Paul’s Day.” Fuck that shit. I want my Tiw with sword and shield in hand.

It’s train like a motherfucker day. Let’s turnaround and go again.