[Early Britain by Grant Allen]@TWC D-Link bookEarly Britain CHAPTER VIII 11/20
Thurleigh, in Bedford; Thurlow, in Essex; Thursley, in Cumberland; Thursfield, in Staffordshire; and Thursford, in Norfolk, are more probably due to later Danish influence, and commemorate namesakes of the Norse Thor rather than the English Thunor. Tiw, the philological equivalent of Zeus, answered rather in character to Ares, and had for his day Tuesday (dies Martis).
Tiw's mere and Tiw's thorn occur in charters, and a few places still retain his name.
Frea gives his title to Friday (dies Veneris), and Saetere to Saturday (dies Saturni).
But the Anglo-Saxon worship really paid more attention to certain deified heroes,--Baeldaeg, Geat, and Sceaf; and to certain personified abstractions,--Wig (war), Death, and Sige (victory), than to these minor gods.
And, as often happens in Polytheistic religions, there is reason to believe that the popular creed had much less reference to the gods at all than to many inferior spirits of a naturalistic sort. For the early English farmer, the world around was full of spiritual beings, half divine, half devilish.
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