In today’s
world, the phrase "Friday the 13th" rolls off the tongue, instinctively
linked to bad luck and strange happenings. Everyone knows Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day. But why
does it have such a bad reputation?
The origin of fears surrounding Friday the 13th is unclear. According to folklorists, there is no
written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th
century. The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini (an Italian composer best known for the opera "The Barber of Seville"), who
died on a Friday 13th.
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| The Thirteen Club Registration Flyer |
One theory states that Friday the 13th is a modern amalgamation of
two older superstitions: that 13 is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.
In 1881, an organization called the Thirteen Club was started in an attempt to
improve the number's reputation. The 13 members of the group walked under ladders and
spilled salt at the first meeting in an attempt to dissuade any negative
associations with the number. Despite these efforts, the number 13 continues to
have an unlucky association to this day. Thirteen is so disliked that many cities do
not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue, many high-rise buildings avoid having
a 13th floor, some hospitals avoid labeling rooms with the number 13 and many
airports will not have a gate 13.
In numerology,
the number twelve is considered the number of divine organizational arrangement
or chronological completeness, as reflected in the 12 months of the year, 12 hours of the day, the 12 deities of Olympus, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles of Jesus, the 12 successors if Muhammad in Shia Islam, 12 signs of the Zodiac, the 12 years of
the Buddhist cycle, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular,
transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some
to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one
of the diners.
Friday has been considered an unlucky
day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded
Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus on the Friday before Easter. The connection between the Friday the
13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and in John J. Robinson's 1989
work Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry, and also in the
Maurice Druon historical novel series Les Rois Maudits (English translation The Accursed Kings).
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| Jacques de Molay sentenced to the stake in 1314, from the Chronicle of France |
The fear
of Friday the 13th has been called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name
of the Norse goddess for whom "Friday" is named in English and triskaidekaphobia meaning
fear of the number thirteen.
(Information courtesy of Wikipedia.com. Thank you!)
