In Russia we meet with the days of the week as "mothers." Perhaps the most remarkable of these is "Mother Friday," a curious product of the mingling of Christian hagiology and Slavonic mythology, of St. Prascovia and the goddess Siwa. On the day sacred to her, "Mother Friday" wanders about the houses of the peasants, avenging herself on such as have been so rash as to sew, spin, weave, etc., on a Friday (520. 206). In a Wallachian tale appear three supernatural females,--the holy mothers Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday,--who assist the hero in his quest of the heroine, and in another Wallachian story they help a wife to find her lost husband. "Mother Sunday" is said "to rule the animal world, and can collect her subjects by playing on a magic flute. She is represented as exercising authority over both birds and beasts, and in a Slovak story she bestows on the hero a magic horse" (520. 211). In Bulgaria we even find mother-months, and Miss Garnett has given an account of the superstition of "Mother March" among the women of that country (61.I. 330). William Miller, the poet-laureate of the nursery, sings of _Lady Summer_:-- "Birdie, birdie, weet your whistle! Sing a sang to please the wean; Let it be o' Lady Summer Walking wi' her gallant train! Sing him how her gaucy mantle, Forest-green, trails ower the lea, Broider'd frae the dewy hem o't Wi' the field flowers to the knee! "How her foot's wi' daisies buskit, Kirtle o' the primrose hue, And her e'e sae like my laddie's, Glancing, laughing, loving blue! How we meet on hill and valley, Children sweet as fairest flowers, Buds and blossoms o' affection, Rosy wi' the sunny hours" (230. 161). _Mother-Sun_. In certain languages, as in Modern German, the word for "sun" is feminine, and in mythology the orb of day often appears as a woman. The German peasant was wont to address the sun and the moon familiarly as "Frau Sonne" and "Herr Mond," and in a Russian folk-song a fair maiden sings (520. 184):-- "My mother is the beauteous Sun, And my father, the bright Moon; My brothers are the many Stars, And my sisters the white Dawns."