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A Party for the Days of the Week on Leap Day: this week on the Night Sky

"The days of the week wanted to have some time off so they could have a party. They were so busy the whole year round, and they were never free all at the same time; BUT every fourth year is leap year, when an extra day is added to February, to keep accounts straight. So they decided that on this day, they would have their party. And since it was in February, when Mardi Gras is, they decided to have a masquerade.”

This is Mary Stewart Adams with “The Storyteller’s Night Sky” and these words are the introduction to a delightful tale by Hans Christian Andersen called “The Days of the Week”, and it’s him having some fun with Leap Day, which is today, Monday, February 29th.

But rather than describe the elaborate process that determines this, I want to talk about the days of the week.

In the traditions of many ancient cultures, the days of the week correspond to the visible planets, so we find that Monday is Moon Day, Tuesday is Mars Day, Wednesday is Mercury Day, and so on. And in Andersen’s story, each day dresses for the masquerade according to the ‘mood’ of their planet: Because Tuesday is Mars day, he comes into the party strong, like a bull, while Friday, the day of Venus, is dressed in her very best, to celebrate the day when women are free.

Now, even though the days of the week correspond to the planets, you have to pay attention, because the sequence of days doesn’t follow the same order that the planets do in our system. 

The planets, when they line up as our days of the week, alternate between the ones that arebetween Sun and Earth, and then those that are further away from Sun than Earth: Moon Day then Mars Day, Mercury Day then Jupiter Day…

It is like a dance, or a fine tapestry being woven through our celestial neighborhood, right into the ordering of our days, and for Hans Christian Andersen, that was reason enough to have a party! You can find a link to Andersen’s story, and to the corresponding order of the planets, at the Interlochen Public Radio website.