Bad Luck Files - Friday The 13th
Beware
Friday The 13th … If you’re tempted to do dangerous things, avoid
doing that on this dark day. Because all the bad luck of the universe will
hopelessly pour over your poor head. Better stand still all day long without moving.
This is the thought of the most superstitious people. Personally I have never
risked my life due to supernatural activities…well, not more than I usually do
everyday. But of course the black shadow of this day is always upon us,
threatening and fascinating. There are lots of theories behind the questions “Why
is Friday the 13th considered
unlucky? Why this evil reputation?”. Or probably I should ask you “Have you
ever asked yourselves those question?”. Maybe not, but one of my personal goals
is to give answers about questions you've never asked. So, here for you some of
the theories about the bad luck around Friday The 13th.
Adam and Eve portrayed by Mark Chagall |
But before
focusing on those theories, let’s start from the most popular theory as to why
Friday is considered an evil day. Some of
the more ancient clues are found in Christianity. By tradition, Friday is
considered the day that Eve gave Adam the “forbidden fruit” and they were
kicked out of the Garden of Eden. It’s
also said that Adam and Eve died on Friday, even if this is just very
improbable because, back then, maybe a definition of “week” was not very
simple.
According
to Christianity, some of the most devastating
events of the Holy Writings happened of Friday. The Temple of Solomon was said to have been
destroyed on Friday. And Jesus was traditionally considered to have been
crucified on a Friday, the day everyone known as Good Friday. Paradoxically, several references in recent
history consider Good Friday the only exception to “The Black List of Fridays”.
In fact, a reference from 1857 said:
“Notwithstanding the prejudice against sailing
on a Friday… most of the pleasure-boats… make their first voyage for the season
on Good Friday”.
Freyja, the goddess of love, beauty, magic, wisdom, death, and war. |
Others
theorize that Friday was considered unlucky before Christianity. According to the Norse legends, The name
“Friday” was chosen in honor of the Norse goddess Freyja, who was the
multitalented goddess of love, beauty, magic, wisdom, death, and war. Teutonic people considered the day extremely
unlucky, especially for weddings, partially due to the lovely goddess the day
was named for. Later, the Christian church tried to demonize this goddess,
factor that maybe contributed to Friday’s reputation.
But these
are just old theories. We have to wait until around the mid-17th century to put our hands upon well documented
instances of the notion that Friday was popularly considered unlucky among people.
The idea continued to spread for over two centuries and by the 19th
century was nearly common in almost every cultures.
And now
let’s talk about the number 13. As for Friday, there are multiple possibilities
for the origin, and the most popular comes again from Christianity. It’s
considered incredibly bad luck to have 13 people sitting at the dinner table,
which is due to the fact that Judas was by tradition the 13th person
to be seated to dine at the Last Supper. This can be connected with an Hindu
tradition, according to which it was bad luck for 13 people to gather together
for any purpose at the same time.
Loki, the Norse God of Mischief |
As you can
see, all these religions are very different between one another, but each one
has a black link with this number. So why this demonizing tradition? Someone
theorizes the number 13 may have been purposely criticized by the patriarchal
religions founders to eradicate the influence of the Mother Goddess. In goddess
worshiping cultures, the number 13 was often revered, as it represented the
number of lunar and menstrual cycles that occur annually. The believers of this
theory think that as the 12-month solar calendar came into use over the
13-month lunar calendar, the number 13 itself became suspect.
Anubis, the Egyptian God of the Afterlife |
What is
noteworthy is that other cultures in the
ancient world linked the number 13 with magic and divine. The Ancient Egyptians,
just to mention the most “modern” ancient culture of history, believed life was
a spiritual journey that was made in different stages. 12 of those stages
occurred in this life, but the last one, the 13th, was a joyous upward
metamorphosis to an eternal afterlife. So,
to the Egyptians, the number 13 represented death, but not in a bad way like we
normally do, but as acknowledgement, glory and eternal life. Of course, it’s always possible the
association with death from Egyptian tradition later morphed into death in a
fearful sense by cultures influenced by Egypt.
And just
like “Friday”, All the legends spread until the 19th century, when the dark
connotation was too much eradicated to be controlled. So when did
Friday and the number 13 join together for the first time ever, creating the
nowadays well known “League of Misfortune”?
A portrait of The Battle of Hastings |
Another explanation everyone believe is connected with King Harold II’s kingdom. In fact, the last day of his domain happened to be on Friday (October 13, 1066). An attempting to King Harold ruling was made by William of Normandy, who gave him the opportunity to renounce his crown. But, like a good king, he refuses the offer. The next day William took it by force during the Battle of Hastings (the battle between these two kings and they’re armies), causing Harold’s brutal death. We need to say in King Harold’s defense that he never surrendered to the invader.
But one of
the earliest actual references about the unlucky mixture comes from a club
formed by William Fowler. Fowler was a
very skeptical person, and so he decided to prove that these superstitions are
baseless. With his brave idea of laughing in the face of death, he formed a club known as “The Thirteen Club”
in which club members would meet in groups of 13 to dine, with their first ever
meeting, of course, on Friday the 13th in January of 1881.
Just to
make things even worse, club members had to walk under a ladder before sitting
down to a table in room 13 of the building they were in. They also made sure there was plenty of
spilled salt on the table before they dined. Welcome to the Bad Luck
Compilation.
A slightly
earlier documented reference comes from 1869, in the biography of the Italian
composer Gioachino Rossini where the author, Henry Sutherland Edwards notes:
"Rossini was surrounded to the last by admiring
friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as
an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that one
Friday 13th of November he died".
Gioachino Rossini |
And this is not the only case of a slight difference : in many nations where Spanish influence is prevalent, rather than Friday the 13th being unlucky, it is Tuesday the 13th that holds that honor.
Original first edition of "Friday The Thirteen" by T. Lawson |
What makes
the Friday the 13th superstition stick so stubbornly in our collective
consciousness? Well, the psychological reason is simple. If anything negative
happens to us on that specific date, we obviously make a permanent association
between the event and the date in their minds, with the final result of
demonizing them in our memories.
The point
is that human being tend to somatize bad influences, such as the fear of being
surrounded by evil energy. For example, the Dutch Centre for Insurance
Statistics in 2008 attempted to prove that Friday the 13th was no
different than any other day. They ended up demonstrating the opposite. From
their results, they found Friday the 13th is actually a slightly safer day to
drive than other days, at least using two years’ worth of data from 2006-2008
in the Netherlands. In that period,
there were an average of 7,500 traffic accidents on days that were both Friday
and the 13th of the month. On Fridays
that didn’t line up with the 13th, there were an average of 7,800 accidents
each day. Their theory is simply that,
due to the phobia, less people drive on Friday the 13th and people are more
careful when they have to. They also
found similar results with reported fires and crimes, with less happening on
Fridays that coincide with the 13th day of the month.
As you can
see, there are many reasons Friday the 13th can be seen as a Diabolical Day.
But it’s funny to think that these documentations are a little piece of world’s
history. It’s not important if you believe it or not. They could just be
coincidences…..or maybe not.HAPPY FRIDAY 13th, Snoopers. Be sure to say away from troubles...
How crazy is it for a specific day and a certain number to have all sorts of story when they come together. :)
ReplyDeleteSo many interesting tales about Friday the 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious. It's always just an ordinary day for me. Sometimes better than the rest because some pay days fall on the 13th. :)
In my opinion it's always interesting to learn something new, even if we don't believe in such things. And paydays rule above any kind of superstition.
DeleteI went to a birthday social on the 13th. I had a good time.
ReplyDeleteHaving a good time is the best way to exorcise the "bad influence" of that day :)
Delete