Friday, the Thirteenth
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Have a nice day!
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Well, well, well, today is Friday, August 13, 2010. It is now 8:09 PM and I have managed to get through the day thus far without anything particularly untoward happening to me. However, I still have almost one-sixth of the day to go. Actually, the occurence of this event is quite common. It occurs at least once a year and as many as three times a year. It always occurs when the first day of the month is on a Sunday.
I wondered about the source of this superstition. I Googled "Friday the Thirteenth," and was sent to Wikipedia. According to the article, this is a relatively recent superstition. The first English reference to it is in the 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini by Henry Sutherland Edwards, on page 340:
[Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; and if it be true that, like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.
The number 13 has been held to be an unlucky number for many years. The number 12 is considered to be a complete number. After all, it represents the number of months in a year, the number of signs of the zodiac, the number of hours in the day, the number of tribes of Israel, the number of disciples of Jesus, and the number of Gods on Olympus. Hence, thirteen is an irregular number and transgresses this completeness.
Friday as an unlucky day goes back to the thirteenth century (hmm!) and the Canterbury Tales. Of course, it is also the day on which Jesus was crucified. A superstition developed around the theme of The Last Supper, in that thirteen people at a table is unlucky and that the life of one of the thriteen is in jeapordy.
This whole scenario of fear became popular in the twentieth century. The fear of Friday the Thirteenth even has a name. It is called friggatriskaidekaphobia. There are many other explanations put forth as the origin of the superstition. If you are interested, do what I did and Google Friday the Thirteenth.
- The Old Professor
Copyright © Jay D Weaver - August 13, 2010
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