Nursery Rhymes and Folk Divination

[sdi]

Are any of you familiar with the nursery rhyme, "Monday's Child?"

I hadn't heard it as a child, myself, but when I had children, I ran across it in quite a number of books on nursery rhymes. The version I'm familiar with runs as follows:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
And the child born on the Sabbath day
 is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

Wikipedia has a decent page on it, indicating that some version of it was known in rural England as early as the 1500s, and recorded in print at least as early as the 1800s.

It is not hard to see this as a folk memory of the planetary days, to wit:

• Sunday is the day of the Sun, associated with (among other things) an irrepressible nature;
• Monday is the day of the Moon, associated with (among other things) a sensual nature;
• Tuesday is the day of Mars, associated with (among other things) athleticism;
• Wednesday is the day of Mercury, associated with (among other things) a mischievous nature;
• Thursday is the day of Jupiter, associated with (among other things) an adventurous nature;
• Friday is the day of Venus, associated with (among other things) love; and
• Saturday is the day of Saturn, associated with (among other things) hard work.

Comments

Thursday's Child

[kallianeira]

There was a book in my primary school library, "Thursday's Child", segueing off that rhyme. A story I enjoyed, about a girl (19C?) overcoming odds through ingenuity and adventure.

https://sydney.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991003558009705106&context=L&vid=61USYD_INST:sydney&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&isFrbr=true&tab=Everything&query=title,exact,Thursday%27s%20Child,AND&sortby=date_d&facet=frbrgroupid,include,9019071711360378823&mode=advanced&offset=0

I'm a Sunday's child and thought it was the luckiest of the lot, however little I identified with the description!

Re: Thursday's Child

[sdi]

It's true, almost every reference I have to hand, even ancient ones, treats the Sun very highly. This surprises me a bit since, astrologically, the Sun is generally malefic—too much and you get scorched, too little and you freeze, so moderation is of higher-than-usual importance.

As for me, I'm Saturday's child and the description certainly fits!